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THE  UNITED  STATES 

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J.    G.    ROSEN  GARTEN 


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LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

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Class 


WITH  THE  COMPLIMENTS  OF 

J.  G.  ROSENGAKTEN 


PLEASE  ACKNOWLEDGE  TO 

17O4  WALNUT  STREET,  PHILADELPHIA 


French  Colonists  and  Exiles 
in  the  United  States 


French  Colonists  and  Exiles 
in  the  United  States 


BY 


J.  G.  Rosengarten 

Author  of  "  The  German  Soldier  in  the  Wars  of  the 
United  States,"  etc. 


Philadelphia  &  London 

J.  B.  Lippincott   Company 

1907 


COPYRIGHT,  1907,  BY 
J.  B.  LIPPINCOTT  COMPANY 


Published  September,  1907 


Printed  by  J.  B.  Lippincott  Company 
The  Washington  Square  Press,  Philadelphia,  U.  S.  A. 


Contents 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  EARLY     FRENCH     SETTLEMENTS     IN    THE 

UNITED  STATES 13 

II.  FRENCH  COLONIES  IN  LOUISIANA 35 

III.  THE  HUGUENOT  SETTLERS 52 

IV.  FRENCH  SOLDIERS  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES.  .  64 
V.  EARLY  FRENCH  TRAVELLERS  IN  THE  UNITED 

STATES 78 

VI.  FRENCH  EXILES  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  ....     86 
VII.  FRENCH   SETTLERS  AND  EXILES  IN  SOUTH 

CAROLINA 91 

VIII.  FRENCH  SETTLEMENTS  IN  THE  WEST  AND  IN 

CANADA 97 

IX.  BRILL  AT  SAVARIN  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  .  .  103 
X.  FRENCH  LAND  COMPANIES  IN  THE  UNITED       * 

STATES 106 

XI.  FRENCH  PLAN  OF  EDUCATION  IN  THE  UNITED 

STATES 121 

XII.  FRENCH  COLONIES  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES: 

GALLIPOLIS^  OHIO;  ASYLUM,  PENNA 125 

XIII.  FRENCH  SETTLEMENT  IN  IOWA 151 

XIV.  BONAP ARTIST    EXILES     159 

XV.  ROYALIST  EXILES 176 

XVI.  BALZAC'S  STORY  OF  A  FRENCH  EXILE 183 

XVII.  FRENCH  MEMBERS  OF  THE  AMERICAN  PHILO 
SOPHICAL  SOCIETY 186 

APPENDIX  A 211 

APPENDIX  B 220 

INDEX  .  .  225 


160757 


Introduction 


THE  French  settlers  in  the  United  States 
have  not  received  the  attention  due  to  them. 
Parkman  and  Bancroft  and  Roosevelt  have 
dwelt  upon  the  early  history  of  the  French  in 
this  country,  and  Fortier  has  given  us  an  ad 
mirable  work  on  the  history  of  Louisiana. 
Many  French  authors  and  travellers  have  writ 
ten  about  the  United  States,  but  little  attention 
has  been  paid  to  the  colonies  settled  with  more 
or  less  success  in  the  closing  years  of  the  Eigh 
teenth  and  the  beginning  of  the  Nineteenth 
Centuries.  Some  accounts  are  found  in  local 
publications,  those  of  state  historical  societies 
or  in  the  pamphlets  written  by  local  authors, 
but  these  are  not  easily  accessible.  M.  Anatole 
Le  Braz,  well  known  for  his  books  on  Brittany, 
suggested  that  a  collected  story  be  given  of 
the  efforts  to  establish  French  colonies  in  the 
United  States.  To  do  this  I  have  made  notes 
from  the  recognized  historians,  and  from  such 
7 


INTRODUCTION 

local  publications  as  could  best  serve  to  supply 
information  on  the  subject.  There  are  some 
references  in  the  writings  of  travellers,  and 
especially  of  those  of  the  numerous  French 
exiles  who  at  the  time  of  the  French  Revolu 
tion,  and  after  the  fall  of  Napoleon,  visited 
this  country.  These  I  have  noted,  too,  as  help 
ing  to  give  an  account  of  the  French  colonies 
in  the  United  States,  as  they  saw  them. 

Philadelphia,  as  the  political  and  social 
capital,  attracted  these  exiles,  and  many  of 
them  made  it  their  home.  Some  of  them  were 
men  of  letters  and  of  science,  and  were  elected 
members  of  the  American  Philosophical 
Society,  which  thus  had  a  close  connection  with 
the  most  noted  of  the  French  settlers  and  col 
onists,  while  many  distinguished  French  trav 
ellers  were  welcomed  at  its  meetings,  elected 
members,  and  interested  in  its  work.  A  brief 
summary  from  its  records  will  show  how  long 
this  connection  lasted.  Nearly  all  the  early, 
and  many  of  the  later  French  diplomatic  rep 
resentatives  in  this  country  were  elected  mem 
bers,  and  the  present  distinguished  French 
Ambassador,  M.  Jusserand,  well  known  by  his 


r 


INTRODUCTION 

scholarly  writings  on  English  Literature 
and  its  history,  has  received  this  acknowledg 
ment,  as  well  as  due  honors  from  many  Amer 
ican  universities. 

The  Huguenot  settlers  in  the  United  States 
have  received  exhaustive  treatment  in  Baird's 
History  of  the  Huguenots,  but  even  his  indus 
try  did  not  follow  them  in  all  their  settlements, 
in  Pennsylvania  and  elsewhere.  Many  later 
French  settlers  have  been  absorbed  into  their 
older  neighbors ;  even  names  have  been  changed, 
so  as  to  make  it  difficult  to  recognize  the  orig 
inal  French  patronymics.  Of  the  compara 
tively  recent  French  Socialist  colonies  in  the 
West  little  is  known.  It  is  hardly  feasible  to 
say  why  the  French  colonies  have  never  suc 
ceeded,  while  other  settlers,  Welsh,  German, 
Scotch,  Irish,  and  in  later  times,  Scandinavians, 
Dutch  and  Italians,  have  persevered  and  be 
come  noteworthy  factors  in  that  great  amal 
gam,  the  American  people.  Of  the  individual 
French  settlers  many  have  achieved  success, 
and  their  names  are  known  through  the  work 
of  their  descendants,  in  art  and  science,  in  lit 
erature,  in  learned  professions, — indeed,  in 
9 


INTRODUCTION 

every  walk  of  life  our  citizens  of  French  birth 
and  descent  have  proved  a  valuable  addition. 
Of  those  less  fortunate  early  French  colonists, 
it  is  plain  that  their  failure  was  largely  due 
to  American  greed  in  land  schemes. 

Senator  Lodge's  Century  (September,  1891) 
article  on  "  The  Distribution  of  Ability  in  the 
United  States,"  reprinted  in  his  "  Historical 
and  Political  Essays"  (Boston,  1892),  gives 
a  very  high  standard  to  the  French,  including 
the  Huguenot  Protestant  French  who  came  here 
during  the  Seventeenth  and  Eighteenth  Cen 
turies,  either  direct  from  France,  or  by  way  of 
England  and  Holland,  and  the  French  descend 
ants  of  the  original  settlers  in  Louisiana,  Mis 
souri,  and  Illinois,  of  soldiers  who  came  with 
Rochambeau,  or  refugees  who  fled  here  from 
France  and  from  St.  Domingo  in  1792. 
He  gives  in  his  Division  of  Races,  based 
on  Appleton's  Encyclopedia  of  American 
Biography,  Huguenot  589,  French  85,  among 
statesmen,  soldiers,  clergy,  lawyers,  physi 
cians,  literary  men,  artists,  scientists,  edu 
cators,  sailors,  business  men,  philanthropists, 
pioneers  and  explorers,  inventors,  engineers, 
10 


INTRODUCTION 

architects,  musicians,  actors.  He  says :  "  If 
we  add  the  French  and  the  French  Hugue 
nots  together,  we  find  that  the  people  of 
French  blood  exceed  absolutely,  in  the  abil 
ity  produced,  all  the  other  races  represented  in 
Appleton's  Encyclopedia  of  American  Biog 
raphy,  except  the  English  and  Scotch-Irish, 
and  show  a  percentage  in  proportion  to  their 
total  original  immigration  much  higher  than 
that  of  any  other  race."  This  is  very  high 
authority,  and  may  well  be  accepted  as  a  rea 
son  for  a  somewhat  fuller  recital  of  the  con 
temporaneous  history  of  the  early,  as  well  as 
of  the  later  French  colonies  in  the  United 
States.  Many  names  illustrious  in  French 
history  will  be  found  among  those  of  the 
exiles  who  found  refuge  in  the  United  States 
in  the  successive  changes  in  France  from  the 
outbreak  of  the  French  Revolution,  through 
the  Napoleonic  Period,  the  Bourbon  restora 
tion,  the  reign  of  Louis  Philippe,  the  Second 
Republic,  the  Third  Empire,  and  the  Third 
Republic. 

Pierre  Leroy  Beaulieu,  in  his  exhaustive  ac 
count  of  the  United  States  in  the  Twentieth 
11 


INTRODUCTION 

Century  (Paris,  1905),  gives  the  number  of 
French  emigrants  who  came  to  the  United 
States  from  1821  to  1903,  as  414,197.  This 
number,  though  small  as  compared  to  the  ac 
cessions  of  other  nationalities,  must  be  increased 
by  the  earlier  settlements,  those  in  Louisiana 
and  up  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi,  and  in 
Virginia  and  Pennsylvania;  by  those  in  Penn 
sylvania  and  Ohio  after  the  French  Revolution, 
and  by  the  later  refugees  after  the  fall  of 
Napoleon — a  large  number  in  all. 


French  Colonists  and  Exiles 
in  the  United  States 


EARLY  FRENCH  SETTLEMENTS  IN  THE 
UNITED  STATES 

THE  oldest  permanent  European  settlement 
in  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi  is  the  village  of 
Kaskaskia ;  the  seat  of  a  Jesuit  mission  in  1684, 
it  gradually  became  a  central  point  of  French 
civilization.1  In  Illinois  La  Salle  opened  the 
way,  in  1681,  and  was  followed  by  Tonti  in 

1700,  with  twenty  Canadian  settlers.    In  June, 

1701,  Cadillac    was    sent    with    one    hundred 
French  to  settle  Detroit,  the  oldest  permanent 
settlement  in  Michigan.     D'Iberville  in  1698 
opened  direct  intercourse  between  France  and 
the  Mississippi  with  two  hundred  settlers,  and 
in  1699  his  brother,  Bienville,  began  the  settle- 

1  Bancroft:  Hist.  U.  S.,  vol.  iii,  p.  195. 
13 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

ments  near  Mobile.  Coxe,  the  proprietor  of 
Carolana,  on  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  obtained 
from  King  William  permission  to  send  six  hun 
dred  French  refugees  and  Vaudois  to  settle 
there.  In  1698  Coxe  sold  500,000  acres  of 
his  grant  on  the  Gulf,  to  Sir  William  Waller, 
the  Marquis  de  la  Muce,  and  the  Sieur  de 
Sailly,  on  condition  that  at  least  two  hundred 
Protestant  colonists  should  be  planted  there 
within  two  years. 

William  III  advanced  £3,000  to  defray  the 
expenses  of  sending  to  Virginia  at  least  five 
hundred  French  Protestants  under  the  care  of 
Coxe,  and  successive  vessels  brought  them  with 
their  clergymen,  to  Manakintown,  on  the 
James,  but  the  emigrants  were  soon  in  a  deplor 
able  state,  and  the  enterprise  was  shortly 
abandoned.  Coxe's  son  published  in  London, 
in  1722,2  his  Description  of  Carolana.  Their 
title  continued  until  1769,  when  the  family 
surrendered  the  charter  of  Carolana  and  re 
ceived  in  exchange  100,000  acres  of  land  in 
New  York,  and  the  township  of  Carolana  and 
other  patents  were  located  in  New  York  under 
3  Scull's  Coxe:  Pa.  Mag.  of  History,  vol.  vii,  p.  317. 
14 


or  THE  \ 

UNIVERSITY  1 

V  °r          K^X 

IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

this  grant.  Vincennes  was  settled  at  least  as 
early  as  1735,  and  thus  began  the  common 
wealth  of  Indiana. 

In  1717,  eight  hundred  emigrants  for 
Louisiana  began  what  was  hoped  to  be  a  colony 
of  at  least  six  thousand  whites,  but  in  1727  of 
Law's  great  colony  only  thirty  needy  French 
men  were  found,  abandoned  by  their  employer. 
In  1736  Alabama  was  opened  to  settlers  at  a 
heavy  sacrifice  of  life. 

It  was  on  the  banks  of  the  Mississippi,  in 
1768,  that  uncontrolled  impulses  first  unfurled 
the  flag  of  a  republic.3  The  treaty  of  Paris 
left  two  European  powers  sole  sovereigns  of 
the  continent  of  North  America.  Spain,  ac 
cepting  Louisiana  with  some  hesitation,  lost 
France  as  the  bulwark  of  her  possessions,  and 
assumed  new  expenses  and  new  dangers,  with 
only  the  negative  advantage  of  keeping  the 
territory  from  England.  Its  inhabitants  were 
of  French  origin,  and  loved  the  land  of  their 
ancestry;  by  every  law  of  nature  and  human 
freedom,  they  had  the  right  to  protest  against 
the  transfer  of  their  allegiance.  No  sooner 

3  Bancroft:  Hist.  U.  S.,  vol.  vi,  p.  217. 
15 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

did  they  hear  of  the  cession  of  their  country 
to  the  Catholic  king,  than  in  the  spirit  of 
independence  an  assembly  sprang  into  being, 
representing  every  parish  in  the  colony,  and 
they  resolved  unanimously  to  entreat  the  King 
of  France  to  be  touched  with  their  affliction 
and  their  loyalty,  and  not  to  sever  them  from 
his  dominions.  At  Paris  their  envoy,  with 
Bienville,  the  time-honored  founder  of  New 
Orleans,  a  venerable  octogenarian,  appealed  in 
vain  to  Choiseul.  In  March,  1766,  Ulloa 
landed  in  New  Orleans.  The  French  garrison 
of  three  hundred  refused  to  enter  the  Spanish* 
service ;  the  people,  to  give  up  their  nationality. 
This  state  of  things  lasted  for  two  years, 
agitating  the  colony  from  one  end  to  the 
other.  It  was  proposed  to  make  of  New 
Orleans  a  republic,  with  a  legislative  body  of 
forty  men  and  a  single  executive.  The  people 
in  the  country  parishes  met  together,  crowded 
in  a  mass  into  the  city,  joined  those  of  New 
Orleans,  and  formed  a  numerous  assembly. 
They  adopted  an  address,  rehearsing  their 
griefs,  and  in  their  Petition  of  Rights  they 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

claimed  freedom  of  commerce  with  the  ports 
of  France  and  America;  the  inhabitants  of 
Louisiana  took  up  the  idea  of  a  republic,  as 
the  alternative  to  their  renewed  connection  with 
France.  Their  hope  was  to  be  a  colony  of 
France  or  a  free  commonwealth.  "  A  good 
example  for  the  English  colonies,"  wrote  du 
Chatelet  to  Choiseul,  "  may  they  set  about  fol 
lowing  it." 

At  this  time  Kaskaskia  had  six  hundred 
whites,  Cahokia,  three  hundred;  Illinois  about 
one  thousand  in  all;  Vincennes  in  Indiana 
about  three  hundred;  Detroit  about  six  hun 
dred;  New  Orleans,  eighteen  hundred.  The 
arrival  of  the  Spanish  squadron  of  twenty-four 
vessels  with  three  thousand  troops  ended  in  the 
severe  punishment  of  those  who  had  led  in  the 
movement  against  Spain.  The  estates  of  twelve 
of  the  richest  and  most  considerable  men  in 
the  Province  were  confiscated,  five  were  con 
demned  to  be  hung,  six  to  imprisonment. 

Parkman  in  his  great  works,  and  since  then 

countless    writers,    have    described    the    great 

achievements  of  the  early  French  explorers,  La 

Salle,  Champlain,  Marquette,  Joliet.  La  Salle's 

2  17 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

Belle  Riviere  of  1670  was  the  Allegheny  and 
Ohio,  and  Celeron  de  Bienville,  sent  by  Galis- 
soniere,  commandant  of  forces  in  New  France 
and  Louisiana,  in  1749,  was  the  first  European 
to  sail  on  the  waters  of  the  Ohio. 

La  Salle  in  1682  buried  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Mississippi,  a  metal  plate  with  the  arms  of 
France,  as  an  emblem  of  sovereignty  by  right 
of  discovery.  In  1749  Celeron  did  the  same 
thing  at  the  confluence  of  the  Ohio  and  Cono- 
wango,  near  what  is  now  Warren,  Pennsyl 
vania,  and  near  the  mouths  of  French  Creek 
in  what  is  now  Pennsylvania,  and  of  Wheeling 
Creek  and  the  Great  Kanawha,  in  the  West 
Virginia  of  to-day,  and  of  the  Muskingum  and 
Great  Miami  Rivers  in  Ohio.  The  English  in 
turn  granted  500,000  acres  on  the  Allegheny 
and  Ohio  Rivers  to  the  Virginia  Company  in 
1767. 

It  was  in  surveying  this  land  that  Washing 
ton  first  made  his  mark.  The  grave  of  Jumon- 
ville,  killed  in  a  skirmish  by  Washington's 
force,  is  still  marked  near  Uniontown,  Pennsyl 
vania.  That  skirmish,  between  thirty-four  men 

under  Washington  and  thirty-one  Frenchmen, 
18 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

was  the  opening  of  the  Old  French  War,  which 
finally  cost  France  both  Canada  and  the  Ohio 
basin. 

Roosevelt's  "Winning  of  the  West"  tells 
the  story  of  the  men  who  finally  settled  that 
great  region  and  made  it  part  of  the  United 
States.  As  late  as  1778  the  French  in  Vin- 
cennes,  learning  that  France  was  the  ally  of 
the  United  States  in  the  war  with  Great  Britain, 
helped  George  Rogers  Clark  in  his  gallant  and 
successful  invasion  of  the  great  West,  which 
he  helped  to  wrest  from  the  mother  country 
for  the  infant  republic.  But  of  the  lesser 
French  settlements  and  of  the  individual 
Frenchmen  who  came  to  this  country,  in  some 
instances  as  travellers  and  visitors,  often  as 
exiles,  there  is  little  record. 

The  next  colony  located  within  the  present 
State  of  Ohio  was  that  of  Gallipolis,  settled 
directly  from  France.4  This  colony  of  about 
four  hundred  persons,  had  been  made  up  in 
Paris,  where  the  principal  persons  had  pur- 

*  History  of  the  Discovery  and   Settlement   of  the 
Valley  of  the  Mississippi,  by  John  W.  Monette  (New 
York,  1846,  2  vols.),  vol.  ii,  p.  258,  etc. 
19 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

chased  a  large  body  of  lands  from  Joel  Bar 
low,  agent  of  theJ3cioto  Company.  They  had 
paid  for  their  lands  at  the  rate  of  a  French 
crown  per  acre,  while  in  France,  to  enable  the 
Company  to  consummate  their  contract  with  the 
government.  The  agent  of  the  Company  had 
accompanied  them  to  the  Ohio  River,  and  had 
selected  for  them  a  beautiful  site  on  the  west 
bank,  two  miles  below  the  Great  Kanawha 
River,  and  within  the  limits,  as  was  subse 
quently  ascertained,  of  the  Ohio  Company's 
purchase.  The  location  having  been  selected, 
the  immigrants  remained  upon  the  Ohio  River, 
whither  they  had  arrived  from  Philadelphia 
during  the  winter,  ready  to  commence  their 
new  settlement. 

Early  in  March,  1791,  the  colony  was  all 
action  and  enterprise,  clearing  land  and  erecting 
houses  and  inclosures  for  their  future  security 
from  Indian  hostility.  Peace  and  joy  seemed 
to  smile  upon  them,  and  the  arduous  toil  of 
the  day  was  beguiled  by  mirth  and  festivity  at 
night,  cheered  by  the  melody  of  the  violin  and 
the  gay  dance.  But  soon  they  found  them 
selves  deceived  in  a  strange  land,  beset  by 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

savage  foes,  and  in  fact  without  a  home  and 
without  money.  The  Scioto  Company  could 
not  give  titles  to  the  land  and  was  not  respon 
sible  for  the  one  hundred  thousand  francs  they 
had  received  from  the  credulous  Frenchmen. 
These  were  without  a  remedy.  Many  of  them 
left  the  country ;  others  received  from  Congress 
a  grant  of  24,000  acres  near  the  Scioto,  known 
as  the  French  Grant;  others  migrated  to  the 
Wabash,  to  join  their  countrymen  at  Vin- 
cennes ;  some  returned  to  Philadelphia  and  then 
to  France.5 

"  Historic  Illinois :  The  Romance  of  the 
Earlier  Days,"  by  Randall  Parrish,  Chicago, 
1905,  is  a  compilation  of  information  on  the 
early  settlements  in  Illinois.  By  1712  the 
French  population  had  increased  to  consider 
able  proportions,  most  largely  concentrated  at 
Kaskaskia.  By  1763  the  Jesuits  there  had  a 
church,  a  chapel,  a  house,  all  built  of  stone,  a 
plantation  of  two  hundred  and  forty  arpents  of 
land,  well  stocked  with  cattle,  and  a  brewery. 
All  was  seized  under  the  edict  of  their  expulsion 

"American  Pioneer,  vol.  i,  pp.  94,  etc.;  vol.  ii,  pp. 
182,  etc.;  Atwater's  Ohio,  p.  159. 
21 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

from  France,  and  but  little  left  of  the  results 
of  their  hundred  years  of  devotion  to  the  task 
undertaken  by  them. 

The  old  trails  led  from  Kaskaskia  to  the 
Peorias,  at  the  mouth  of  the  Des  Moines  River, 
and  to  Detroit,  part  of  the  latter  still  a  legal 
highway  in  continual  use.  Later  Clark  laid 
out  one  to  Fort  Massac  on  the  Ohio  River, 
thus  avoiding  the  old  French  trail. 

The  establishment,  in  1682,  by  La  Salle,  of 
Fort  St.  Louis  attracted  adventurous  French 
men,  coureurs  de  bois,  voyageurs,  soldiers,  fur 
traders,  and  priests,  but  with  the  abandonment 
of  the  post  in  1702  they  soon  scattered.  The 
oldest  permanent  settlement,  not  only  in  Illi 
nois,  but  in  the  entire  Mississippi  valley,  was 
that  of  Kaskaskia,  "Notre  Dame  de  Cascas- 
quias," — first  an  Indian  village,  then  a  mis 
sionary  station,  then  slowly  gathered  a  vagrant 
white  population.  By  1766  there  were  about 
one  hundred  families,  French  and  English, 
many  of  the  original  French  inhabitants  having 
gone  to  St.  Louis.  Most  of  the  settlers  of 
Kaskaskia  came  from  New  Orleans,  those  of 
Cahokia  from  Canada ;  Prairie  du  Rocher,  four- 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

teen  miles  from  Kaskaskia,  grew  up  about  Fort 
Chartres.  The  names  of  some  of  the  earliest 
colonists  of  Illinois  are  preserved  in  the  records 
at  Quebec. 

The  early  histories  of  Illinois  describe  their 
homes, — they  were  largely  descendants  from 
emigrants  from  Picardy  and  Normandy.  In 
1720  Major  Pierre  Dugue  Boisbriant,  some  of 
whose  descendants  yet  reside  at  Prairie  du 
Rocher,  accompanied  by  one  hundred  men, 
came  up  from  New  Orleans,  and  sixteen  miles 
from  Kaskaskia  built  Fort  Chartres.  In  1721 
Renault  brought  two  hundred  miners  and  five 
hundred  slaves  to  work  the  mines  he  expected 
to  discover.  In  1745  the  Illinois  country  sent 
400,000  pounds  of  grain  to  New  Orleans,  the 
surplus  product  of  a  population  of  about  nine 
hundred  all  told. 

At  Kaskaskia,  Cahokia,  Prairie  du  Rocher, 
Prairie  du  Pont,  and  St.  Philippe,  the  peasantry 
in  their  picturesque  costumes,  conspicuous  with 
coloring,  mingled  with  gentlemen  who,  even  in 
that  wilderness,  clung  to  the  Parisian  garb, 
with  the  French  soldiers  in  their  blue  uniforms 
and  white  facings,  the  black-robed  Jesuits,  and 
23 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

the  stolid  Indian  warriors.  After  1721  black 
slaves  were  numerous  throughout  the  settle 
ments.  These  were  originally  St.  Domingo 
negroes  brought  by  Renault  to  labor  in  his 
mines,  but  twenty  years  later  sold  to  the 
colonists.  In  1750  there  were  five  French  vil 
lages  with  eleven  hundred  whites,  three  hundred 
blacks,  and  sixty  savages.  At  Le  Pe,  now 
Peoria;  at  Chicago,  possibly  at  Rock  Island 
and  Quincy,  there  were  small  stockaded  forts 
with  a  few  French  settlers.  A  trading-post 
was  established  on  the  Missouri  side  of  the  river 
at  New  Madrid  as  early  as  1740.  The  region 
was  notable  for  bears,  and  the  principal  trade 
was  the  sale  of  bear's  grease,  hence  the  name, 
L'Anse  de  la  Graisse.  The  fortified  trading- 
post  of  Vincennes  was  established  in  1722,  but 
did  not  become  a  French  settlement  until  twelve 
years  later.  These  isolated  communities  fur 
nished  many  French  volunteer  soldiers. 

Thus  flourished  for  nearly  a  hundred  years 
these  communities  of  French  pioneers.  They 
accomplished  little  of  permanent  value.  Their 
forts  have  crumbled  into  dust ;  their  towns  have 

disappeared   beneath   the   encroaching   waters 

24 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

or  have  decayed  and  passed  away;  only  a  few 
remnants  have  escaped  the  inflowing  tide  of 
American  population,  and  they  also  are  fast 
losing  the  peculiarities  of  their  fathers.  In 
1791  by  special  act  of  Congress  four  hundred 
acres  of  land  were  granted  to  each  head  of  a 
family  who  had  made  improvements  in  Illinois 
prior  to  1788.  A  list  of  names  of  those  en 
titled  shows  two  hundred  and  forty-four,  of 
whom  eighty  were  Americans,  the  others 
French.  Allowing  five  to  a  family,  this  would 
make  eight  hundred  and  twenty.  In  1791 
under  the  militia  law  there  were  two  hundred 
and  twenty-five  Frenchmen  capable  of  bearing 
arms. 

Renault,  St.  Philippe,  Prairie  du  Rocher, 
Fort  Chartres,  Massac,  Kaskaskia,  Cahokia, 
Fort  St.  Louis,  Fort  Crevecoeur,  are  names  that 
still  reveal  the  sites  of  early  French  settlements 
in  Illinois,  while  Father  Allouez,  Aubry,  Bar- 
beau,  Barbier,  Baugy,  Beausoleil,  Bellefon- 
taine,  Bienville,  Noel  Blanc,  Boilvin,  Boisron- 
det,  Bossu,  Bourdon,  Bouthillier,  Brossard, 
Chevet,  De  Montbrun,  Du  Page,  Galland,  Ger 
main,  Guyon,  La  Forest,  La  Grange,  Le 
25 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

Comte,  Meillet,  Membre,  Menard,  Moreau, 
Pachot,  Saussier,  are  a  few  of  the  French  names 
of  individuals  who  reveal  the  French  element  in 
Illinois. 

Roosevelt's  "  Winning  of  the  West "  [New 
York,  1894*]  has  many  suggestive  references 
to  early  and  later  French  settlements.6 

Mobile  in  1781  was  described  by  an  early 
French  traveller  (Le  Gal,  Paris,  1802)  as  a 
little  terrestrial  paradise,  with  about  forty 
proprietary  families. 

In  1784  there  were  four  hundred  French 
families  in  the  Illinois  country,  a  like  number 
at  Vincennes,  and  four  hundred  and  forty  at 
Kaskaskia  and  Cahokia.  In  1778  the  British 
Governor,  Hamilton,  reported  the  number  of 
settlers  at  Vincennes  as  six  hundred  and  twenty- 
one. 

Roosevelt  describes  the  life  of  the  French 
Creoles,  and  quotes  Collot's  account  of  them 
and  of  the  great  fur  trade  built  up  by  one  of 
them,  Gratiot.  The  French  settlers  of  the 
Illinois  and  Wabash  country  quarrelled  with 

"Roosevelt:    "Winning  of  the  West,"  vol.  i,  pp.  31, 
35;  vol.  ii,  pp.  39,  78. 

26 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

the  new  American  comers,  whose  energy  dis 
turbed  their  easy-going  life.  In  1786  Vin- 
cennes  had  upwards  of  three  hundred  houses, 
and  sixty  American  families  took  refuge  there 
from  the  hostile  Indians.  The  old  French 
families  complained  of  the  abuses  inflicted  on 
them  in  poor  return  for  the  hospitality  ex 
tended  to  the  refugees,  and  General  Clark  es 
tablished  a  garrison  of  one  hundred  and  fifty 
men  of  his  command  to  keep  order.  To  punish 
marauding  Indians  an  attack  was  made  on  a 
settlement  of  French  Indian  traders  in  Cum 
berland  County,  Kentucky,  in  which  the  latter 
suffered  for  the  help  they  had  given  the 
Indians.  French  and  Americans  alike  suffered 
at  the  hands  of  the  Spanish  in  their  efforts  to 
stop  trade  with  New  Orleans;  some  of  the 
French  moved  to  the  west  (Spanish)  side  of 
the  Mississippi,  to  enjoy  the  benefit  of  their 
protection. 

In  1787  there  were  five  hundred  and  twenty 
French  at  Vincennes,  one  hundred  and  ninety- 
one  at  Kaskaskia,  two  hundred  and  thirty-nine 
at  Cahokia,  eleven  at  St.  Philippe,  seventy- 
eight  at  Prairie  du  Rocher,  ten  hundred  and 
27 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

thirty-nine  in  all,  or  as  another  account  put  it, 
one  thousand  and  forty  French  at  the  six  vil 
lages  on  the  Wabash  and  the  Illinois,  as  against 
two  hundred  and  forty  Americans,  of  which 
one  hundred  and  three  were  at  Vincennes  and 
one  hundred  and  thirty-seven  in  the  Illinois 
country.7  Roosevelt  quotes  from  a  memorial 
of  the  French  settlers  to  Congress  for  a  con 
firmation  of  the  titles  to  their  lands ;  their  agent 
Tardiveau,  a  French  mercantile  adventurer, 
had  relations  with  the  Spanish  agents  and  the 
Kentucky  separatists.  General  Harmar,  in 
taking  possession  of  Vincennes  and  the  French 
towns,  spoke  well  of  the  "  Creoles,"  but  said 
they  could  best  be  governed  in  the  manner  to 
which  they  were  accustomed,  by  a  commandant 
with  a  few  troops.  Sprung  as  they  were  from 
French  soldiers,  naturally  they  preferred  a 
strong  military  rule.  The  American  settlers 
were  almost  all  soldiers  of  the  Revolutionary 
armies, — hard-working,  orderly  men  of  trained 
courage  and  keen  intellect,  courteous,  indus 
trious  and  law-abiding.  A  fortnight  after  the 

'Roosevelt:  "Winning  of  the  West,"  vol.  iii,  pp.  235, 
237,  239,  263,  266,  272. 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

passage  of  the  ordinance  of  1787  for  the  gov 
ernment  of  the  Northwest  Territory,  the  Ohio 
Company  bought  a  million  and  a  half  acres 
north  of  the  Ohio,  and  three  and  a  half  mil 
lions  more  were  authorized  to  be  sold  to  the 
Scioto  Company,  nominally  at  seventy  cents  an 
acre,  but  as  payment  was  made  in  depreciated 
public  securities,  the  real  price  was  only  eight 
or  nine  cents  an  acre.  Manasseh  Cutler  was  the 
leader  in  these  ventures,  and  on  his  first  trip  up 
the  Ohio  was  cared  for  by  a  well-to-do  Creole 
trader  from  the  Illinois,  Francis  Vigo,  who  had 
welcomed  Clark  when  he  took  Kaskaskia. 

At  a  dinner  given  to  the  officers  of  Fort 
Harmar  on  July  4,  1787,  one  of  the  toasts 
was  to  the  King  of  France.  Even  in  the 
Indian  wars,  the  Creoles  suffered  little  at  the 
hands  of  the  savages.  Clark  had  given  the 
name  of  Louisville  in  honor  of  that  king  of 
France  whose  alliance,  he  hoped,  would  render 
easier  the  task  of  winning  over  the  inhabitants 
of  the  Illinois,  just  as  later  on  Marietta  was  so 
called  in  honor  of  Marie  Antoinette  and  to 
allure  the  royalist  exiles  to  Ohio.  Earlier  al 
ready  Patrick  Henry,  Governor  of  Virginia, 
29 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

had  advised  Clark  to  secure  the  friendship  of 
the  French,  and  they  stood  him  in  good  stead 
in  rescuing  the  West  from  the  British.  This, 
too,  made  the  French  towns  outposts  for  the 
protection  of  the  settlers.  Between  the  increas 
ing  flow  from  the  old  States  and  the  attacks 
of  the  British  with  their  French-Canadian  and 
Indian  allies,  the  old  French  settlements  were 
in  hard  plight.  Frenchmen  were  appointed  to 
most  of  the  civilian  offices,  while  the  military 
posts  were  under  Americans.  While  French 
men,  layman  and  priest,  helped  the  Americans 
with  money  and  goods,  the  French  resorted  to 
punishment  of  their  negroes  of  such  severity  as 
to  shock  even  the  frontiersmen. 

Genet's  plans  to  organize  an  armed  expedi 
tion  on  the  Ohio  River  in  1793-4  to  conquer 
Louisiana,  as  Spain  was  then  an  ally  of  Eng 
land  and  at  war  with  France,  found  support  in 
the  discontented  adventurers  of  the  West,  led 
by  General  Clark.8  Genet  commissioned  him 
as  a  major-general  in  the  service  of  the  French 
Republic,  and  sent  out  various  Frenchmen, — 

•Roosevelt:  "Winning  of  the  West,"  vol.  iv,  pp.  176, 
182,  243,  268. 

30 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

Michaux  (nominally  on  a  scientific  tour  of  ex 
ploration),  La  Chaise,  Collot,  and  others,  with 
civil  and  military  titles, — to  cooperate  with 
Clark,  but  the  movement  collapsed  with  Genet's 
recall.  Clark  tried  to  get  reimbursement  from 
the  French  government  for  the  "  expenses  of 
expedition  ordered  by  Citizen  Genet,"  but  of 
course  without  result. 

In  1791  the  most  pitiable  group  of  emi 
grants  that  reached  the  West  at  this  time  was 
formed  by  the  French  who  came  to  the  town  of 
Gallipolis,  on  the  Ohio.  They  were  mostly 
refugees  from  the  Revolution,  who  had  been 
taken  in  by  a  swindling  land  company.  They 
were  utterly  unsuited  to  life  in  the  wilderness, 
being  gentlemen,  small  tradesmen,  lawyers,  and 
the  like.  Unable  to  grapple  with  the  wild  life 
into  which  they  found  themselves  plunged,  they 
sank  into  shiftless  poverty,  not  one  in  fifty 
showing  industry  and  capacity  to  succeed. 
Congress  took  pity  on  them  and  granted  them 
24,000  acres  in  Scioto  County,  the  tract  being 
known  as  the  French  Grant;  but  no  gift  of 
wild  land  was  able  to  insure  their  prosperity. 

By  degrees  they  were  absorbed  into  the  neigh- 
31 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

boring  communities,  a  few  succeeding,  most 
ending  their  lives  in  abject  failure. 

In  1800  Napoleon  was  planning  for  France 
the  reestablishment  in  America  of  that  colonial 
empire  which  a  generation  before  had  been 
wrested  from  her  by  England.  His  great  am 
bition  halted  at  the  tremendous  sacrifice  of 
French  troops  in  the  failure  of  the  West-Indian 
military  expedition,  and  the  great  demands  of 
Bernadotte  and  Victor  as  the  conditions  on 
which  they  would  undertake  to  establish  a 
French  imperial  colony  in  Louisiana,  Texas, 
and  Mexico. 

In  "  Mount  Desert,  a  History,"  by  Geo.  E. 
Street,  Boston,  1905,  there  is  a  brief  sketch  of 
the  efforts  towards  French  colonization  by 
Roberval  and  La  Roche,  with  reference  to 
Winsor's  "  Cartier  to  Frontenac,"  and  an  ac 
count  of  the  organized  French  colony  on  the  St. 
Croix.  The  French  plans  of  colonization  were 
made  under  Henry  IV,  who  in  1599 
commissioned  Pierre  Chauvin  to  colonize 
America,  and  later  gave  a  like  commission  to 
Du  Guast,  Sieur  de  Monts,  set  forth  in  Baird's 
"  Huguenot  Emigration  to  America,"  vol.  i, 
32 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

pp.  341-7,  and  in  Fiske's  "  New  France  and 
New  England."  The  colony  on  Mount  Desert 
was  brought  there  in  1613,  but  it  was  of  short 
duration.  The  only  trace  of  it  is  in  the  names 
given  by  the  French.  In  1688  Mount  Desert 
was  granted  to  Cadillac  by  Louis  XIV ;  he  made 
a  short  stay  there,  going  later  to  Mackinac  and 
then  to  Detroit  and  finally  to  Louisiana  as 
Governor,  1712-17,  and  leaving  his  name  con 
nected  with  points  in  eight  of  the  present  States 
of  the  Union.  Parkman's  "  Frontenac  "  and 
Margry's  "  Relations  et  Memoirs  Inedits " 
give  particulars  of  his  active  career.  The  Baron 
de  St.  Castine  settled  on  the  site  of  the  present 
town  of  Castine,  Maine,  and  left  a  family  of 
half-breed  children,  who  were  driven  off  by  the 
English,  and  all  trace  of  them  is  lost  after 
their  return  to  France.  In  1786  the  Gregoires 
as  descendants,  on  the  wife's  side,  of  Cadillac, 
obtained  from  Massachusetts  a  grant  of  land 
on  the  west  side  of  Mt.  Desert  Island,  settled 
at  what  is  now  called  Hull's  Cove,  built  a  house 
and  mill  and  began  to  farm.  The  husband 
died  in  1810,  the  wife  in  1811,  and  the  children 
returned  to  France  and  were  lost  sight  of.  The 
3  33 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

French  colonies  on  Mt.  Desert  were  short 
lived  but  are  recalled  there  by  the  recently 
erected  cross  as  a  memorial  of  their  landing  at 
St.  Sauveur.  Their  early  explorations  of  the 
coast  of  New  England  have  of  late  years  been 
republished  and  their  maps  have  an  historical 
interest  and  are  remarkably  accurate. 


II 

FRENCH  COLONIES  IN  LOUISIANA 

FORTIER'S  History  of  Louisiana  is  written 
by  one  whose  family  settled  in  New  Orleans 
shortly  after  its  foundation  in  1718.  He 
naturally  takes  pride  in  relating  the  history  of 
the  events  on  the  soil  of  Louisiana  for  the  last 
two  hundred  years,  for  in  nearly  all  of  them 
men  of  his  name  or  blood  took  part.  La  Salle 
gave  the  name  of  Louisiana  in  1679,  in  honor 
of  Louis  XIV,  and  in  1682  took  formal  posses 
sion  in  the  king's  name,  planting  a  cross  and 
burying  a  leaden  plate  with  a  record  of  the 
fact.  He  established  Fort  St.  Louis  among 
the  Illinois,  and  after  an  interview  with  the 
King,  brought  out,  in  1684,  soldiers,  me 
chanics,  laborers,  volunteers,  several  families, 
and  a  number  of  girls,  his  brother  who  was  a 
Sulpician  priest,  with  others  of  that  order, 
and  three  Recollet  friars.  On  his  way  from 

what  is  now  Texas,  where  he  landed  by  mistake 
35 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

at  Matagorda  Bay,  which  he  took  for  one  of 
the  mouths  of  the  Mississippi,  to  Canada,  to 
get  help  for  his  colony,  he  was  killed  by  his 
companions  in  1687,  thus  wrecking  his  plans, 
and  leaving  it  for  Iberville  and  Bienville  to 
found  Louisiana.  They  landed  in  1699,  built 
a  fort,  manned  it,  and  named  the  two  lakes 
Maurepas  and  Pontchartrain,  in  honor  of  the 
Ministers  under  whose  auspices  he  had  made 
his  expedition.  A  geologist,  Lesueur,  went 
out  in  search  of  minerals.  Iberville,  on  his 
third  and  last  voyage,  found  only  one  hundred 
and  fifty  persons  in  the  colony.  More  than 
sixty  had  died.  He  sent  his  brother  Bienville 
to  found  another  colony  on  Mobile  River.  In 
1704  he  reported  one  hundred  and  eighty  men 
bearing  arms,  twenty-seven  French  families, 
some  slaves,  four  ecclesiastics,  eighty  wooden 
houses,  nine  oxen,  fourteen  cows,  four  bulls, 
five  calves,  one  hundred  hogs,  three  goats,  four 
hundred  chickens.  A  census  of  1706  gives  the 
names  of  the  settlers  with  the  number  of  their 
families,  making  eighty-two  in  all,  and  a  list  of 
the  cattle,  forty-six  head  in  all.  In  1708  a 
report  gave  the  population  as  composed  of  a 
36 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

garrison  of  one  hundred  and  twenty-two  per 
sons,  including  priests,  workmen  and  boys,  one 
hundred  and  fifty-seven  inhabitants,  men, 
women,  and  children,  besides  sixty  wandering 
Canadians  and  eighty  Indian  slaves,  and  four 
teen  hundred  hogs,  two  thousand  chickens,  and 
about  one  hundred  head  of  cattle. 

In  1712  Louisiana  was  granted  to  Crozat 
for  fifteen  years,  and  Cadillac,  the  founder  of 
Detroit,  was  made  governor,  but  was  soon  re 
moved.  In  1717  the  colony  contained  seven 
hundred,  of  all  ages,  sexes,  and  colors.  In 
1710  Mobile  was  founded,  and  in  1717  three 
companies  of  infantry  and  fifty  settlers  came. 
In  that  year  Crozat  surrendered  his  charter 
and  the  colony  was  given  to  John  Law,  who 
made  it  part  of  his  Company  of  the  Indies.  In 
1718  Bienville  as  governor,  founded  New 
Orleans.  In  1721  the  colony  numbered  about 
six  thousand,  including  six  hundred  negroes. 
In  1722  New  Orleans  was  made  the  capital,  and 
Charlevoix  said  it  had  about  one  hundred  huts, 
a  large  store,  and  a  few  other  buildings,  yet  he 
predicted  a  brilliant  future.  Le  Page  du 
Pratz  in  his  History  of  Louisiana  (Paris, 
37 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

1758),  gives  his  own  personal  experience  dur 
ing  his  stay  in  the  colony  from  1718  to  1734. 
Dumont,  who  was  twenty-two  years  in  Louisi 
ana,  gave  an  account  of  the  colony  in  his  book, 
and  the  archives  of  the  Colonial  Office  in  Paris 
contain  frequent  census  returns,  showing  the 
condition  of  the  colony  in  1721,  1723,  1726, 
1727,  and  its  increase  in  numbers  and  pros 
perity,  in  spite  of  Indian  wars,  mismanage 
ment  by  the  home  government,  and  troubles  of 
the  local  authorities.  Then  came  the  cession  to 
Spain,  in  1764,  and  in  1765  the  French  left 
Fort  Chartres,  in  the  territory  ceded  to  Great 
Britain,  crossed  the  Mississippi,  and  founded 
St.  Louis,  the  first  settlement  of  what  is  now 
Missouri.  Then  came  the  Acadians,  refugees 
from  British  oppression,  who  in  time  became 
a  source  of  wealth  to  Louisiana  by  their  indus 
try.  L'Abbe  Casgrain  estimates  their  descend 
ants  as  numbering  one  hundred  thousand.  With 
the  cession  to  Spain,  the  colony  lost  its  pros 
perity,  and  after  fruitless  appeals  to  France 
there  was  a  short-lived  revolution,  for  the 
population  of  less  than  twelve  thousand,  of 

whom  half   were   slaves,   could   not  resist  the 

38 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

power  of  Spain.  It  gave  Louisiana  the  glory 
of  having  thought  of  establishing  a  republican 
form  of  government  in  America  in  1768,  eight 
years  before  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 
It  ended  in  punishment  of  the  leaders  by  death, 
imprisonment,  exile,  and  confiscation,  that  left 
Spain  unpopular. 

Although  under  Spanish  rule,  Louisiana, 
through  the  successful  campaign  of  Galvez 
against  the  English  and  his  capture  of  Pensa- 
cola  with  the  surrender  of  English  and  Waldeck 
troops,  can  proudly  boast  of  having  aided  the 
Americans  in  the  war  for  Independence  of  the 
United  States.  In  1785  a  number  of  Aca- 
dians  came  to  Louisiana  at  the  expense  of  the 
King  of  France  and  were  settled  through  the 
country.  It  was  Bore,  born  at  Kaskaskia,  in 
the  Illinois  district,  in  174*1,  of  an  old  Norman 
family,  educated  in  France  at  a  military  school, 
and  settling  in  Louisiana  in  1768,  who  success 
fully  introduced  the  sugar  industry  there. 

In  1798  Louis  Philippe  and  his  brothers 
visited  New  Orleans  and  were  received  with 
great  cordiality,  one  of  the  richest  men  of  the 

colony,    Poydras,   loaning   them    money.      In 
39 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

1800  Berthier,  who  had  served  under  Rocham- 
beau,  made  on  behalf  of  Napoleon  the  treaty 
of  St.  Ildefonso,  confirmed  by  a  later  treaty  at 
Madrid  signed  by  Lucien  Bonaparte,  by  which 
Louisiana  became  again  a  French  colony. 
Later,  in  1803,  Rochambeau  (the  son)  sur 
rendered  St.  Domingo  to  the  blacks,  and  many 
exiles  went  to  Louisiana,  to  join  their  friends 
who  had  already  taken  refuge  there.  Berna- 
dotte  was  appointed  captain-general  of  Louisi 
ana,  but  as  he  demanded  three  thousand  soldiers 
and  as  many  agriculturists,  Bonaparte  declared 
he  would  not  do  as  much  for  one  of  his  brothers, 
appointed  Bernadotte  Minister  to  the  United 
States,  an  office  he  declined,  and  General  Victor 
was  made  captain-general  and  Laussat  colonial 
prefect, — the  former  with  a  salary  of  70,000 
francs,  the  latter  50,000, — but  the  expedition 
to  Louisiana  was  abandoned,  Victor  never 
sailed,  and  all  he  did  was  to  draw  his  salary 
and  issue  a  bombastic  proclamation. 

Pontalba,  who  left  a  memoir  on  Louisiana, 
was  born  in  New  Orleans  in  1754,  educated  in 
France,  served  under  Noailles  and  D'Estaing 
at  the  siege  of  Savannah  in  1779,  resigned  and 

40 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

returned  to  New  Orleans  in  1784.     Pontalba 
submitted  to  Napoleon  a  memoir  on  Louisiana, 
in  which  he  said :    "  In  the  hands  of  France, 
the  colony  must  be  called  to  the  most  brilliant 
destiny,   and   be   a   source   of   riches   for   the 
metropolis.     Almost  all  the  Louisianians   are 
born  French  or  are  of  French  origin.     They 
would  again  become  French  with  enthusiasm. 
The  deficit  of  $337,000  will  be  covered  in  a 
few  years  merely  by  the  progress  of  the  sugar 
plantations.     People  it,  it  will  become  an  inex 
haustible  source  of  wealth  for  France."     This 
memoir,  dated  Paris,  29  Fructidor,  year  IX 
(September     15,     1801),    was    presented    to 
General  Bonaparte  by  Decres,  after  the  treaty 
of  1800  conveyed  Louisiana  back  to  France. 
Laussat    reached    New    Orleans    in    March, 
1803,   and   issued   a   proclamation   that   said: 
"  Your  separation  from  France  marks  one  of 
the  most  shameful  epochs  of  her  annals,  under 
a  government  already  weak  and  corrupt,  after 
an  ignominious  war,  and  as  the  result  of  a 
shameful  peace,"   and  received  a   simple  and 
dignified  address  in  reply,  signed  by  the  prin 
cipal  inhabitants,   followed  by   one   from   the 

41 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

planters,  full  of  gratitude  for  the  return  to 
France.  Yet  on  April  30,  1803,  the  treaty 
ceding  Louisiana  to  the  United  States  was 
signed  in  Paris.  Laussat  had  denounced  the 
report  as  an  impudent  and  incredible  falsehood 
to  assist  the  partisans  of  Jefferson ! 

The  transfer  was  made  on  November  30, 
1803,  with  solemn  ceremonies, — Laussat  and 
the  Spanish  general  exchanged  civilities,  and 
the  former  finally  handed  Louisiana  over  to  the 
United  States  Commissioners  on  December  20, 
1803.  Napoleon  was  largely  guided  by  Decres, 
who  had  served  in  the  French  army  in  the 
American  War  of  Independence,  and  Barbe 
Marbois,  who  had  been  the  French  diplomatic 
representative  in  this  country,  and  had  an 
American  wife  ( Miss  Moore  of  Chester  County, 
Pennsylvania).  He  wrote  a  History  of  Louis 
iana  and  tells  the  story  of  Napoleon's  decision, 
to  enable  him  to  wage  war  in  Europe  against 
England  with  American  money. 

Laussat  left  "  Memoirs,"  printed  at  Paris 

in   1831,   from   which   Professor   Fortier  has 

drawn  much  interesting  material.     The  French 

flag  was  escorted  by  a  company  of  fifty  French 

42 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

citizens,  who  had  served  in  the  French  army, 
from  the  beginning  of  the  Revolution,  and  tears 
were  shed  when  the  French  flag  disappeared 
from  the  shores  of  Louisiana.  There  were  some 
signs  of  hostility  between  French  and  Ameri 
cans,  but  these  soon  ceased.  Robin,  who  was 
also  present,  wrote  a  book  in  which  he  makes  a 
record  of  his  own  observations  of  the  cession, 
and  his  voyage  to  Louisiana  is  of  interest  and 
value  from  the  period  of  his  visit. 

Professor  Fortier  gives  the  dates  of  the 
French  settlements  in  the  Illinois  country  and 
upper  Louisiana :  old  Kaskaskia  in  the  "  terres 
trial  paradise  "  at  the  end  of  the  Seventeenth 
Century ;  Fort  Chartres  in  1720,  nearby  Caho- 
kia,  Prairie  du  Rocher,  etc.,  Kaskaskia  with  a 
college  and  monastery  of  the  Jesuits  in  1721, 
chartered  in  1725;  Vincennes  in  1735;  St. 
Louis  in  1764,  by  Chouteau,  with  thirty  men, 
increased  in  1765  by  families  leaving  the  coun 
try  ceded  to  the  British.  It  remained  prac 
tically  French  even  after  the  cession  to 
Spain. 

Among  the  noteworthy  Frenchmen  who  took 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

part  in  the  battle  of  New  Orleans  was  General 
Humbert,  who  was  a  brigadier  in  the  French 
army,  served  in  Vendee,  was  in  1798  com- 
mander-in-chief  of  the  French  expedition  to 
Ireland,  later  took  part  in  the  unfortunate 
expedition  to  St.  Domingo,  lost  the  favor  of 
Napoleon,  came  to  New  Orleans,  where  he 
taught  school;  in  1816  went  to  Mexico  to  fight 
for  its  independence,  but  was  unsuccessful,  and 
returned  to  New  Orleans,  where  he  died  in  1823. 
Latour,  of  the  French  Polytechnic  School,  was 
one  of  the  principal  engineers  of  Jackson's 
army.  Lefebvre,  a  soldier  of  the  Republic 
under  Bonaparte,  served  the  mortars.  Gen 
eral  Moreau  had  suggested  the  points  of  de 
fence.  Lakanal,  the  conventionnel,  was  princi 
pal  of  the  College  of  Orleans;  he  came  to  the 
city  of  New  Orleans  after  the  restoration  of 
the  Bourbons,  proscribed  as  a  regicide.  Con 
gress  made  him  a  grant  of  land,  and  he  lived 
on  a  farm  on  Mobile  Bay,  until  he  returned  to 
France,  in  1837,  where  he  died  in  1845,  hon 
ored  for  his  work  in  science. 

The    Hunter    Dunbar    expedition    up    the 
Washita  in  1804  found  two  large  land  grants 
44 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

located  on  the  Washita,  that  of  the  Marquis  de 
Maison  Rouge  and  twelve  leagues  square  above 
it,  that  of  the  Baron  de  Bastrop. 

In  1804  Robin,  a  French  traveller  (he  pub 
lished  his  account  in  Paris  in  1807),  said  the 
American  government  was  doing  nothing  to 
advance  American  settlement.  The  forest 
Americans  (backwoodsmen)  were  not  com 
parable  to  the  robust  French  as  emigrants.1 
All  the  early  American  expeditions  were  ma 
terially  helped  by  French  settlers,  trappers, 
etc.  In  1805  two  Frenchmen  from  Illinois, 
Lalande  and  Durocher,  and  later,  in  1806, 
three  more  joined  Pike's  expedition  and  gave 
him  much  useful  information.2 

The  Chouteau  family  enjoyed  for  twenty 
years  the  exclusive  privilege  ( from  the  Spanish 
and  French  governments)  of  trading  up  the 
Osage  River,  before  Pike  came  to  the  Osage 
country  in  1806.  It  was  through  French 
traders  that  he  learned  of  the  safe  return  of 
Lewis  and  Clark  to  St.  Louis  from  their  epoch- 

1  Robin's  Travels,  vol.  iii,  p.  141. 

2  Cox:    The  Early  Exploration  of  Louisiana,  pp.  12, 
etc.     University  of  Cincinnati  Press,  1906. 

45 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

making  expedition.  Perrin  du  Lac  in  his 
Travels  says:  In  1801  he  found  in  Elizabeth- 
town,  New  Jersey,  a  number  of  French  refugees 
from  St.  Domingo  and  Guadeloupe.  Near 
Harrisburg  he  met  a  Frenchman  who  had  been 
by  turn,  soldier,  merchant,  government  em 
ployee,  musician,  and  was  earning  his  living  as 
a  dancing  master. 

At  Gallipolis  he  found  a  hundred  and  sixty 
people,  all  that  were  left  of  six  hundred  families 
emigrated  from  France  in  1790-91,  only  to  find 
that  the  Scioto  Company  had  sold  them  land 
to  which  it  had  no  title.  After  four  years  of 
misery  Congress  gave  them  land  sixty  miles 
from  Gallipolis,  but  most  of  the  owners  sold 
it  for  nominal  prices,  while  a  few  remained  in 
poverty  at  Gallipolis. 

Perin  says  that  it  is  due  to  the  Baron  de 
Carondelet,  the  Spanish  governor  of  Louisiana, 
that  acknowledgment  be  made  him  for  his  suc 
cessful  opposition  to  the  establishment  of  the 
Inquisition,  urgently  solicited  by  the  Bishop. 
In  "  Louisiana :  A  Record  of  Expansion," 
by  Albert  Phelps  (American  Commonwealths, 

New  York,  1905),  there  are  references  to  the 
46 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

"  First  French  Settlements  in  Louisiana,"  and 
the  foundation  of  Mobile  in  1701  by  Bienville 
under  Iberville's  orders,  from  Hamilton's 
"  Colonial  Mobile,"  and  Margry's  collections. 
It  was  under  Law's  vast  grant  and  powers 
that  the  full  tide  began  to  reach  Louisiana. 
The  emigrants,  hurried  out  to  fill  seignorial 
grants,  began  to  arrive  in  swarms.  The 
first  three  shiploads  arrived  in  1718.  The 
colony  responded  to  the  European  enthu 
siasm.  In  June  three  hundred  colonists  for  the 
Mississippi  arrived ;  one  hundred  and  fifty-one 
of  these  were  sent  to  the  Natchez;  eighty-two 
to  the  Yazoos,  and  sixty-eight  to  New  Orleans. 
Ship  after  ship  came  in  loaded  with  set 
tlers  ;  in  August,  1718,  there  had  arrived  eight 
hundred  in  three  ships,  and  among  them  Le 
Page  du  Pratz,  the  first  historian  of  Louisiana. 
One  hundred  were  sent  to  the  Illinois,  others 
to  the  Mississippi,  to  Bay  St.  Louis,  Biloxi, 
and  Mobile. 

Later  on,  under  Spanish  rule,  the  governor, 

Carondelet,    encouraged    the    immigration    of 

French  royalists  fleeing  from  the  horrors  of  the 

Revolution,  welcoming  them  as  an  offset  to  the 

47 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

Republicans,  who,  encouraged  by  "  Citizen  " 
Genet  and  his  emissaries,  from  Philadelphia, 
had  set  on  foot  plans  for  the  recapture  of 
Louisiana  for  France.  On  the  Washita 
(Ouachita)  River  he  granted  twelve  square 
leagues  to  the  Baron  de  Bastrop;  thirty  thou 
sand  acres  to  the  Marquis  de  Maison  Rouge, 
and  ten  thousand  square  arpents  to  De  Lassus 
and  St.  Vrain.  These  concessions  were  not 
settled  by  the  proprietors,  but  they  were 
destined  to  play  a  part  in  the  famous  scheme 
of  Aaron  Burr  some  years  later.  In  1797 
Carondelet  was  made  uneasy  by  the  presence 
of  the  French  General  Collot,  who  had  been 
making  maps  and  plans  and  inspecting  the 
miniature  forts  near  New  Orleans.  He  ar 
rested  Collot  and  sent  him  to  Philadelphia  on 
the  rumor  that  France  was  eager  to  regain 
Louisiana  and  that  Collot  had  been  sent  to 
reconnoitre  the  ground. 

Gayarre  in  "  A  Louisiana  Sugar  Plantation 
of  the  Old  Regime "  (Harper's  Magazine, 
March,  1887),  gives  a  complete  picture  of  a 
typical  Louisiana  plantation  in  the  old  days 

before  American  control.     It  was  the  planta- 

48 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

tion  of  Etienne  de  Bore,  the  patron  saint  of 
Louisiana  sugar  planters.  The  table  was 
free  to  every  white  traveller,  even  the  humblest 
wayfarer.  The  Bore  plantation  was  typical  of 
all  the  large  plantations  of  sugar,  cotton, 
indigo,  and  tobacco. 

The  incident  of  the  single  attempt  to  estab 
lish  the  Holy  Inquisition  in  Louisiana  is  typical 
of  the  kindly  tolerance  of  the  French  Creoles. 
In  1789  the  Spanish  Capuchin  Antonio  de 
Sedella,  under  the  new  policy  of  the  bigoted 
Carlos  IV,  was  appointed  emissary  of  the  In 
quisition  to  Louisiana.  His  portrait  is  in  the 
Cathedral — a  tall,  gaunt  figure.  He  had  his 
agents  and  his  implements  of  torture,  and 
made  his  investigations  with  secrecy  and  cau 
tion.  Apparently  when  his  first  victims  had 
been  chosen,  he  applied  to  Governor  Miro  for 
a  file  of  soldiers  that  he  might  need.  Mir6 
sent  the  soldiers,  not,  however,  to  assist 
the  Holy  Office,  but  to  arrest  the  representative 
of  the  Inquisition  and  pack  him  off  to  Spain, 
with  a  bold  justification  of  his  act,  "  lest  the 
mere  name  of  the  Inquisition  uttered  in  New 
Orleans  would  check  immigration,  which  is 
4  49 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

successfully  progressing,  and  would  drive  away 
those  who  have  recently  come."  Father  Sedella 
returned  to  Louisiana,  and  remained  for  many 
years  the  most  beloved  of  priests ;  when  he  died, 
in  1829,  the  whole  city  mourned  for  him — 
hermit,  saint,  friend  of  the  people. 

In  the  War  of  1812  Great  Britain  counted 
on  the  help  of  the  great  number  of  refugees 
from  Jamaica,  St.  Domingo,  Guadeloupe,  and 
other  West  Indian  islands.  It  was  hoped 
they  might  be  induced  to  assist  the  British 
invasion,  and  that  the  contraband  traders  and 
smugglers  might  be  employed  as  effective 
auxiliaries.  The  latter,  known  by  the  general 
name  of  Baratarians,  were  daring  men, 
refugees  from  the  French  West  Indies,  who 
under  letters  of  marque  from  France  and  from 
the  young  republic  of  Carthagena,  preyed 
upon  British  commerce  as  privateers.  Some 
time  about  the  year  1809  there  had  come  to 
New  Orleans  from  Bayonne  or  Bordeaux  the 
brothers  Pierre  and  Jean  Lafitte.  They  were 
soon  known  as  the  chief  agents  of  the  Bara- 
tarian  smugglers.  Jean  Lafitte  acquired  such 

an  ascendency  over  them  that  his  orders  re- 
50 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

ceived  instant  obedience,  while  he  maintained 
his  place  among  the  quiet  citizens  of  New 
Orleans.  Gayarre's  Historical  Sketch  of  Pierre 
and  Jean  Lafitte  gives  an  exhaustive  account 
of  their  strange  career.  Latour  in  his  His 
torical  Memoir  confirms  their  services  to  Gen 
eral  Jackson  in  his  defence  of  New  Orleans. 
He  found  the  Baratarians  men  after  his  own 
heart,  accepted  Jean  Lafitte's  offer  of  trained 
gunners,  and  promised  to  obtain  pardon  for 
them  from  the  President.  They  manned  the 
forts,  and  the  two  chief  batteries  were  given 
to  Dominique  Yon  and  Beluche,  with  their  fel 
low  pirates  and  some  veteran  gunners  of  the 
French  army.  General  Humbert  was  one  of 
Jackson's  active  aids.  The  victory  of  the  8th 
of  January  was  thus  largely  due  to  French 
men  and  to  the  French  Creoles,  descendants 
of  the  early  settlers,  who  thus  attested  their 
fidelity  to  the  government  of  the  United  States. 


Ill 

THE  HUGUENOT  SETTLERS 

BAIRD  tells  the  sad  story  of  the  early  attempt 
to  settle  a  French  colony  in  Florida,  in  the 
Seventeenth  Century.  Ribaut  was  chosen  by 
Coligny  to  lead  the  first  expedition.  He  landed 
near  Beaufort,  South  Carolina;  returning  to 
France  and  entering  the  Huguenot  ranks,  he 
led,  at  the  suggestion  of  Coligny,  the  third 
expedition,  which  ended  in  his  murder  by  the 
Spaniards.  Laudonniere  led  the  second  expe 
dition,  but  was  superseded  by  Ribaut. 

Baird  gives  in  great  detail  the  names  of  the 
Huguenot  refugees  who  sought  and  found 
shelter  in  the  American  colonies,  from  Maine 
to  South  Carolina.  Many  of  the  descendants 
are  still  found  in  the  United  States,  often 
with  names  changed,  yet  easily  recognizable. 
Among  them  were  clergymen,  men  of  educa 
tion  and  attainments,  some  who  had  held  im 
portant  positions  in  France;  others  were 
59 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

mariners,  merchants  and  tradesmen,  and  arti 
sans,  and  their  new  home  profited  by  their 
virtues. 

Francis  Marion,  the  brave  soldier  in  the 
American  War  of  Independence,  was  the 
worthy  descendant  of  a  Huguenot  exile.  Paul 
Revere  is  another  Huguenot  name  famous  in 
American  heroic  history.  Faneuil  Hall  in 
Boston  perpetuates  another.  Of  others,  the 
history  of  America  has  examples  in  famous 
soldiers  and  great  sailors,  in  statesmen,  in 
bishops  and  noted  clergymen, — indeed,  in  every 
walk  of  life  the  descendants  of  Huguenots 
exiled  to  America  have  strengthened  the  his 
toric  ties  between  France  and  the  United  States. 

The  Le  Contes  have  rendered  notable  services 
to  natural  science  in  successive  generations. 
Rhode  Island  welcomed  some  of  the  Huguenot 
exiles,  and  Penn  invited  others  to  his  province. 
All  of  the  American  colonies  were  anxious  to 
secure  the  Huguenots  as  settlers,  and  they 
came  both  as  individuals  and  in  quite  large 
bodies.  In  New  Rochelle  they  secured  a  tract 
of  land  and  built  a  church  and  endowed  it 

with  a  glebe,  and  to  this  day  the  French  lan- 
53 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

guage  is  used  in  the  Huguenot  Church  in 
Charleston,  South  Carolina,  in  pious  rev 
erence. 

Many  hundreds,  aided  by  generous  grants 
from  the  crown,  came  to  Virginia  and  suffered 
no  little  hardship  from  the  unscrupulous  land 
owners  and  speculators.  Those  who  came  to 
New  England  fared  better,  and  more  than  re 
turned  by  their  prosperity  the  help  extended 
to  them.  They  were  successful  merchants  and 
sturdy  fighters  and  patriotic  citizens,  and 
names  such  as  Bowdoin,  Faneuil,  and  Revere, 
are  typical  of  the  addition  to  New  England 
of  the  French  Huguenots  as  an  element  of  good 
in  its  growth  and  development. 

A  monument  erected  in  1884  perpetuates  the 
memory  of  the  Huguenot  settlers  in  Oxford, 
then  a  frontier  town  in  Massachusetts,  and  the 
story  of  their  hardships  is  preserved  in  many 
records.  It  was  not  until  1721  that  the  set 
tlement  was  finally  broken  up  and  its  tract  of 
twenty-five  hundred  acres  sold.  Of  the  settlers 
the  Sigourneys,  the  Bowdoins,  the  Dupuys  and 
others  joined  the  families  living  elsewhere,  and 
Hartford  and  New  York  and  Newport  and 
54 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

New  Rochelle  welcomed  this  addition  to  their 
number. 

The  early  settlers  in  East  Greenwich,  Rhode 
Island,  in  a  locality  still  known  as  Frenchtown, 
were  soon  scattered  by  quarrels  of  the  claimants 
for  the  land  and  by  unfair  treatment.  Baird 
prints  a  "  Mapp  of  the  [lands  of  the]  French 
Refugee  Gentlemen  who  are  all  turned  out  by 
the  Road  Islanders,"  reproduced  from  the  orig 
inal  prepared  by  Ayrault  in  a  petition  for 
redress,  still  in  the  British  State  Paper  Office. 
Ayrault's  name  is  perpetuated  in  a  street  in 
Newport,  where  his  son  removed.  Others 
joined  their  fellow  Huguenots  in  more  flourish 
ing  colonies,  but  Providence  and  Bristol  and 
Newport  still  bear  in  pious  memory  the  good 
done  by  those  who  remained  in  Rhode  Island. 
The  story  of  the  Huguenots  in  America,  as 
told  by  Baird  and  in  many  local  and  family 
histories,  is  a  very  interesting  and  important 
chapter  in  the  varied  history  of  the  French 
settlers  in  the  United  States.  It  shows  how 
valuable  an  element  was  thus  infused  into  the 
varied  streams  that  have  gathered  together  in 

the  people  of  the  great  republic. 
55 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

A  French  Protestant  church  was  established 
in  New  York  in  the  Seventeenth  Century. 
French  Huguenot  refugees  took  up  a  tract  of 
six  thousand  acres  near  that  city,  at  New 
Rochelle,  a  name  suggesting  their  old  home  in 
France.  One  hundred  acres  were  set  apart  for 
the  endowment  of  a  church,  and  of  the  ninety 
members  many  of  the  names  are  still  familiar  in 
New  York,  while  these  again  are  often  perpetu 
ated  in  the  streets  of  the  city.  In  1724  a 
quarrel  in  the  Huguenot  Church  in  New  York 
became  matter  of  record  in  its  Documentary 
History,  nearly  a  hundred  men  and  women 
members  of  the  congregation  signing  for  one 
side,  with  only  eight  on  the  other,  but  these 
including  the  pasteur,  1'Ansien  [sic],  and  six 
of  the  consistory.  In  1761-62  the  members 
of  the  French  Church  at  New  Rochelle  are  on 
record  as  petitioners  to  Governor  Golden,  recit 
ing  that  in  1681  their  land  was  granted  to 
them.1 

1  Registers  of  the  Births,  Marriages  and  Deaths  of 
the  French  Church  in  New  York  from  1688  to  1804.— 
Collections  of  the  Huguenot  Society  of  New  York, 
vol.  i.  New  York,  1886. 

56 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

The  first  French  service  was  held  in  New 
York  in  1628.  In  1623  thirty  families  of 
Walloon  or  French  came  to  the  Delaware,  to 
Connecticut,  and  up  the  Hudson.  Additions 
came  in  1625  and  1626,  and  between  1628  and 
1638,  and  between  1648  and  1658.  Many  of 
the  descendants  became  leading  citizens  and 
some  of  them  important  men  in  the  history  of 
the  United  States. 

Stapleton's  "  Memorials  of  the  Huguenots 
in  America,  with  special  reference  to  their 
Emigration  to  Pennsylvania,"  Carlisle,  Penn 
sylvania,  1901,  is  supplementary  to  Baird's 
"  Huguenot  Emigration  to  America,"  and 
mentions  the  contributions  to  a  knowledge  of 
their  settlements  in  Pennsylvania,  Virginia, 
New  England,  and  South  Carolina.  In  Charles 
ton,  South  Carolina,  their  memory  is  kept  alive 
by  the  French  service  in  the  Huguenot  Church. 
In  New  York  and  in  New  England  the  names 
of  the  Huguenot  settlers  are  still  familiar  in 
Bowdoin,  Revere,  and  many  others  well  known. 
In  Pennsylvania  there  were  many  settlers  of 
French  Huguenot  faith.  The  first  distinct 
settlement  was  that  led  by  Mme.  Ferree 
57 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

to  a  large  tract  of  land  bought  by  her  in  Lan 
caster  County  in  1709.  Her  son  and  her  son- 
in-law,  Isaac  Lefever,  settled  in  Pequea,  and 
their  names  and  descendants  are  now  widely 
scattered.  In  1712  Isaac  de  Turk  settled  near 
Oley  in  Berks  County,  and  he  and  his  fellow 
French  settlers  through  their  numerous  de 
scendants  maintained  their  native  language 
down  to  quite  recent  times.  The  lists  of  emi 
grants  given  in  the  Pennsylvania  Archives  con 
tain  many  names  of  French  families  coming 
to  Pennsylvania  in  1736  and  on  for  a  number 
of  years,  from  Alsace  and  Lorraine.  Their 
sons  won  distinction  as  soldiers  in  the  War  of 
Independence,  and  in  important  civil  posts. 
In  Delaware  and  in  Maryland  there  were  nu 
merous  French  settlers,  notably  the  Bayards. 
Of  the  Du  Ponts  the  earliest  was  a  settler  on 
the  Santee  in  South  Carolina  in  1694.  His 
grand-nephew,  Pierre  Samuel  Du  Pont  de 
Nemours,  an  active  Girondist  in  France,  and 
well  known  by  his  writings  as  an  economist 
and  by  his  activity  in  public  life,  followed  his 
sons,  who  had  established  industries  on  the 
Brandy  wine  that  have  made  them  famous 

58 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

From  this  family  sprung  Admiral  Du  Pont  and 
General  Du  Pont  and  other  useful  citizens. 
Among  Penn's  early  settlers  were  some  French, 
and  very  good  citizens  they  were.  The  Doz, 
De  la  Val,  Du  Castle,  Reboteau,  of  the  Isle  du 
Rhe,  Imbert  of  Nisme,  Le  Chevalier  of  Nor 
mandy,  Boudinots,  Duches  of  La  Rochelle, 
Benezet  of  Montpellier,  all  are  well  known. 
The  Cressons  were  from  Picardy,  the  Gar- 
rigues  from  Montpellier,  and  the  Cassers  from 
Languedoc.  The  records  of  Christ  Church 
and  of  the  Lutheran  churches  of  Philadelphia 
are  full  of  the  names  of  these  early  French 
Huguenot  settlers  and  their  families.  In  Ger- 
mantown  were  the  Le  Bruns,  De  la  Plaines,  and 
later  the  Duvals,  Clapiers,  and  many  others, 
and  Duval  Street  and  Clapier  Street  still  per 
petuate  their  old  homes.  In  the  Perkiomen  and 
Lower  Schuylkill  valleys  were  Boyers,  De 
Frains  or  De  Fresnes,  Pechins,  Purviances, 
Tregos,  Dubois,  La  Barres,  Le  Quais,  De  la 
Cours,  Bigonets,  Loreaux,  who  became  Lorah; 
Le  Char,  Leshers ;  Retteaus,  Rettew ;  Perdeaus, 
Barto;  while  in  the  rich  Oley  Valley  of  Berks 
County  were  De  Turks,  Bertolets,  De  Bonne- 
59 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

villes,  De  Vaus,  De  la  Planch,  now  Planks; 
while  nearer  Reading  settled  Dubrees,  Boilieus, 
Tonnelliers,  who  became  Kieffers,  and  in  this 
as  in  many  other  cases  the  French  origin  was 
almost  lost.  In  the  upper  Delaware  and  Le- 
high  country  are  found  De  Normandie, 
Bessonet,  Le  Valleau,  De  Pue,  now  De  Pew; 
Michelet,  later  Mickle;  Jour  dan,  Santee,  from 
Burgundy;  Boileau,  Balliet,  from  Languedoc; 
while  in  Lancaster  County  among  the  early  set 
tlers  were  French  traders,  Bezillion,  Chartiers, 
Lebort,  Perrines,  Mathiots,  Le  Roys,  De  Bos, 
as  well  as  many  later  comers. 

The  records  of  the  churches  of  all  the  many 
sects  settled  in  Pennsylvania  are  full  of  names 
showing  the  French  origin  of  many  of  the 
members.  The  Le  Beaus  are  now  Lebos,  the 
Besores  are  Bashore  and  Baysore,  according  to 
the  county  they  lived  in,  Berks  or  Franklin. 
In  Lebanon  the  Jacques  became  Jacobs;  in 
Dauphin,  De  Saussier  became  Sausser;  Monier 
from  Lorraine,  Money;  Grosjean,  Groshong; 
and  Souplis,  Suplee.  Across  the  Susquehanna 
in  York  were  Perots,  who  became  Berrot;  Dou~ 

tel,  Dutill;    Votturin  of  Lorraine,  Woodring; 
60 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

Moreau,  Morrow ;  St.  Gris,  Sangree ;  La  Mothe, 
Lamott ;  and  the  Cessnas  and  Piatts  are  among 
the  descendants  of  French  Huguenot  settlers. 
In  Western  Pennsylvania  are  Cassatts  (orig 
inally  Cassart),  Bennetts,  Marchands,  Leis 
ures,  Mestrezats,  relatives  of  Albert  Gallatin; 
Brunot;  Drey  vault,  now  Dravo;  Fortineaux, 
now  Fortny;  Boucquet  became  Buckey;  Mot- 
tier,  Motter;  and  from  Pennsylvania  through 
Maryland  into  Virginia  these  families  are 
found.  Even  of  the  poor  Acadian  exiles  some 
were  left  in  Pennsylvania,  and  often  their 
names  were  changed  out  of  all  resemblance  to 
the  French  originals,  just  as  the  Custom  House 
officers  wrote  the  names  of  immigrants  on  the 
lists  printed  in  the  Pennsylvania  Archives,  in 
a  way  that  makes  it  very  puzzling  to  identify 
now.  More  to  be  proud  of  than  noble  ancestry, 
are  the  names  of  such  men  as  Audubon,  Bay 
ard,  Benezet,  Dupont,  Duponceau,  Gallaudet, 
Gallatin,  and  others  of  French  birth  or  descent, 
who  have  served  their  country  with  honor. 

An  early  French  settlement  on  the  upper 
Delaware  in  Pennsylvania  was  that  of  Nicholas 
Dupuy,  in  1725,  and  a  deed  for  three  thousand 

61 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

acres  from  the  Indians  in  1727  was  confirmed 
by  a  patent  from  the  Proprietors,  the  Penns, 
and  their  grantee,  William  Allen.  Another 
early  French  settlement  in  that  neighborhood 
was  that  of  the  La  Barre,  Le  Barre,  or  La  Bar 
family,  in  1730.  This  name  is  still  honorably 
preserved  and  distinguished  by  descendants. 

In  1794  Fran9ois  Vannier  of  St.  Domingo 
bought  land  in  Monroe  County,  Pennsylvania. 
In  1816  Constantine  Pinchot  of  Bretielle, 
France,  settled  with  his  son  Cyrille  on  a  tract  of 
four  hundred  acres  near  Milford,  Pike  County, 
Pennsylvania,  still  known  locally  as  the  French 
lot.  His  descendants  still  own  the  land,  and 
have  shown  a  capital  example  of  the  success  of 
French  thrift  and  intelligence.  One  of  the  de 
scendants  is  the  head  of  the  Forestry  Bureau 
of  the  United  States,  and  has  by  word  and  deed 
done  an  infinite  service  by  his  skill  and  intelli 
gence  in  the  cause  of  preserving  and  restoring 
the  wealth  of  American  timber. 

Fauchere,  Le  Clerck,  Bournique,  Loreaux, 
are  among  the  names  of  later  French  settlers 
on  the  upper  Delaware,  and  some  of  the  de 
scendants  still  live  and  prosper  there.  In  the 
62 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

western  part  of  Pennsylvania,  once  a  French 
territory,  there  are  still  traces  of  the  early 
French  settlements,  both  in  place  names,  such 
as  Fort  Du  Quesne  in  Pittsburg,  and  in  the 
names  of  descendants  of  those  whose  nation 
ality  was  transferred  from  France  to  Great 
Britain  and  then  to  the  United  States. 


IV 

FRENCH  SOLDIERS  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

MANY  of  the  French  soldiers  who  served  in 
the  American  Revolution  returned  to  France 
and  left  more  or  less  interesting  memoirs.  The 
Swedish  Count  Fersen  tried  to  save  Marie 
Antoinette,  and  in  his  old  age  lost  his  life  in 
an  outbreak  in  Stockholm.  The  Marquis 
Armand  de  la  Rouarie,  who  as  Colonel  Armand, 
led  a  cavalry  regiment  under  Washington,  be 
came  a  noted  chief  of  the  loyalists  in  Brittany, 
and  his  romantic  story  is  told  with  great  fulness 
of  detail  in  recent  books.  Others  became  very 
noted  French  generals  and  statesmen.  Many 
of  the  French  officers  who  served  with  Rocham- 
beau  have  left  notes  of  the  impression  made  on 
them  by  Washington.  "  He  has,"  says  Fersen, 
"  the  air  of  a  hero,  his  figure  fine  and  majestic, 
his  manner  gentle  and  kindly,  his  smile  agree 
able,  his  welcome  simple  and  dignified."  Segur 
says :  "  He  inspired,  rather  than  commanded, 
64 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

respect;"  Lauzun  has  only  praise  for  his  mod 
eration,  and  Lafayette  entrusted  his  son  to  him 
as  to  a  second  father.  The  Rochambeaus, 
father  and  son,  handed  down  as  heirlooms  the 
portrait  of  Washington  that  he  had  presented, 
and  the  guns  taken  at  Yorktown  which  he  gave 
them  as  trophies,  and  the  sword  he  had  ex 
changed  with  the  older  soldier.  Of  the  French 
officers  who  served  in  America,  Lauzun,  Due  de 
Gontaut  Biron,  served  France  in  its  wars  only 
to  end  his  life  on  the  scaffold.  Berthier  became 
Prince  of  Wagram,  Dumas  a  general  under 
Napoleon. 

Chastellux  not  only  served  with  distinction 
under  Rochambeau,  but  his  "  Travels  in  1780- 
82  "  furnish  the  first  really  trustworthy  record 
of  life  in  the  United  States,  as  jotted  down  by 
a  cultivated  European,  who  had  helped  them  to 
gain  their  independence,  and  thus  he  rendered 
a  twofold  service. 

Even  "  Tom  "  Paine  brought  with  him  to 
this  country  his  Paris  host,  Bonneville,  and  his 
family,  and  one  of  the  sons  became  an  officer 
of  distinction  in  the  United  States  army. 
Washington  Irving  wrote  an  account  of  Bonne- 
5  65 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

ville's  Western  explorations.  In  doing  this  he 
paid  tribute  to  John  Jacob  Astor,  whose  purse 
contributed  very  largely  to  the  expense  of  this 
and  other  early  Western  explorations,  and  even 
if  he  did  it  with  a  view  to  later  commercial 
dealings,  both  gift  and  motive  did  him  credit. 
Colonel  Bonneville  was  not  the  first  of  the  name 
to  do  good  service  in  America.  An  earlier  De 
Bonneville  served  as  an  engineer  in  the  old 
French  War  in  1763,  and  published  in  1771  a 
book  on  America.  The  younger  Bonneville, 
born  in  France  in  1795,  was  appointed  to  West 
Point,  graduated  in  1815,  and  in  1831-3  was 
engaged  in  explorations  in  the  Rocky  Moun 
tains  and  California.  His  journal,  edited  and 
amplified  by  Washington  Irving,  was  published 
in  1837.  He  was  brevetted  for  gallantry  in 
the  Mexican  War,  and  later  for  long  and  faith 
ful  services  through  the  Civil  War ;  he  was  the 
oldest  officer  on  the  retired  list  at  the  time  of 
his  death.  Washington  Irving  met  him  at  Mr. 
Astor's,  through  whose  generous  help  both 
profited,  and  Irving  edited  his  manuscript 
notes,  and  published  his  Travels  to  the  Rocky 
Mountains,  in  Philadelphia,  through  Carey, 
66 


I    UNIVERSITY  1 
or  J 

IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

Lea  and  Blanchard,  in  1837,  as  in  some  sort  a 
supplement  to  his  Astoria,  in  which  he  gave 
an  account  of  Astor's  unsuccessful  efforts  to 
establish  trade  with  Oregon  and  the  then  un 
known  West. 

The  Comte  de  Paris  and  the  Prince  de 
Joinville  not  only  showed  their  earnest  sym 
pathy  for  the  Union  by  brief  service  in  arms 
for  it,  but  the  former  made  a  real  contribution 
to  military  history  by  that  of  the  Civil  War, 
and  the  latter  contributed  a  short  account  of 
the  Army  of  the  Potomac  from  actual  personal 
observation.  On  both  sides  in  the  great 
struggle  there  were  French  soldiers,  in  some 
cases  whole  regiments  from  New  York  and 
companies  from  New  Orleans  and  Louisiana, 
and  all  gave  a  good  proof  that  the  old  Gallic 
spirit  had  endured  even  in  their  new  homes  and 
in  spite  of  years  of  peace  and  harmony. 

The  Society  of  the  Cincinnati  in  both  the 
United  States  and  in  France  keeps  alive  the 
memories  of  the  alliance  between  France  and 
the  United  States,  and  the  successful  issue  of 
the  long  struggle  for  independence.  But  apart 
from  these  historic  events,  there  were  many 
67 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

Frenchmen  to  whom  the  United  States  is  in 
debted.  L'Enfant  laid  out  the  city  of  Wash 
ington  in  a  way  that  commands  to-day  the 
admiration  of  American  architects,  and  it  is 
by  restoring  his  plans  that  the  National  Capi 
tal  is  to  take  its  place  among  the  great  cities 
of  the  world. 

Balch's  "  The  French  in  America  "  gives  as 
among  the  French  officers  who  returned  to  this 
country  to  settle,  De  la  Gardette,  of  the  regi 
ment  Soissonais;  De  Beaulieu,  of  the  Armand 
Legion,  settled  at  Asylum;  Colombe  returned 
to  Philadelphia  after  being  imprisoned  with 
Lafayette  at  Olmlitz;  Dupetit  Thouars,  in 
1795-96  at  Asylum,  fell  at  the  Battle  of  the 
Nile;  Duponceau  became  a  leader  of  the 
Philadelphia  Bar;  Duportail  came  to  the 
United  States  in  1794,  and  died  at  sea  while 
returning  to  France  in  1804 ;  L'Enfant, 
architect,  who  laid  out  Washington,  died  in 
Maryland  in  1825. 

Vicomte  de  Noailles  [Louis  Marie]  was  born 
in  Paris  in  1756,  second  son  of  the  Marshal 
de  Noailles,  married  his  cousin  Louise,  daugh 
ter  of  the  Due  de  Noailles,  and  granddaughter 
68 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

of  D'Aguessau.  He  was  young,  handsome,  am 
bitious  of  glory,  a  patriot.  Returning  to  the 
United  States,  he  was  active  in  forwarding, 
with  Dupetit  Thouars,  the  colony  of  Asylum 
in  Pennsylvania.  Returning  to  active  service, 
he  was  wounded  in  a  successful  naval  engage 
ment,  and  died  in  Havana  January  3,  1804. 
His  grandson  was  one  of  the  French  descend 
ants  of  the  French  who  served  in  the  American 
Revolution,  to  visit  this  country  on  the  Cen 
tenary  of  Yorktown. 

Major  L'Enfant,  author  of  the  plan  of  the 
City  of  Washington,  D.  C.,  has  been  properly 
described  as  a  neglected  genius.  Fortunately 
the  wheel  of  fortune  has  recently  turned  in  his 
favor,  and  the  great  architects  of  our  own  day 
have  paid  tribute  to  his  memory  by  adopting 
his  plans  as  the  basis  for  the  improvements  now 
under  way,  to  make  Washington  a  metropolis 
worthy  of  the  nation  and  suitable  for  its 
capital.  Born  in  Paris  in  1754,  he  came  to 
America  in  1777,  with  Du  Coudray,  the  French 
engineer,  served  as  a  volunteer,  was  commis 
sioned  a  captain  of  engineers  in  the  United 
States  army,  was  attached  to  the  light  infantry 

69 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

in  the  Army  of  the  South,  led  the  advance  in 
the  assault  on  Savannah  under  Lincoln,  and 
was  wounded  at  the  head  of  his  force;  was 
made  prisoner  at  the  siege  of  Charleston,  South 
Carolina,  and  later  was  exchanged  for  Captain 
v.  Heyden  of  the  Anspach  Yagers,  and  served 
as  engineer  under  Washington.  He  received 
a  pension  from  the  King  of  France  and  a  brevet 
as  major  from  Congress.  He  remodelled  the 
City  Hall  in  New  York  for  the  use  of  Congress, 
and  in  acknowledgment  received  the  thanks  of 
the  corporation,  the  freedom  of  the  city,  and  a 
grant  of  ten  acres  of  city  land,  which  he  de 
clined.  In  1789  he  wrote  to  Washington  of 
the  importance  of  a  plan  for  the  city  of  Wash 
ington  worthy  of  the  nation,  and  of  the  protec 
tion  of  the  seacoast  as  a  matter  of  national  im 
portance.  He  was  appointed  to  prepare  the 
plans  for  the  city  of  Washington,  and  although 
for  many  years  their  execution  was  postponed 
and  marred  by  the  interference  of  less  compe 
tent  hands,  they  have  recently  been  revived 
and  are  now  being  used,  with  due  recognition, 
as  the  basis  for  a  great  and  beautiful  metro 
politan  capital.  He  died  in  1825  in  Prince 
70 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

George's  County,  Maryland,  just  beyond  the 
line  of  the  District  of  Columbia.  To  his  archi 
tectural  genius  and  engineering  skill  the  United 
States  owe  the  plan  submitted  by  L'Enfant  in 
1791,  and  adopted  by  Congress  and  approved 
by  Washington,  and  with  its  execution  now  his 
fame  will  be  perpetuated  in  the  city  of  Wash 
ington. 

In  October,  1778,  D'Estaing  issued  in  the 
name  of  Louis  XVI  a  proclamation  to  all  the 
"  old  French "  in  North  America,  inviting 
them  to  escape  the  tyranny  of  Great  Britain 
and  join  the  French  forces  in  their  help  to 
secure  liberty  for  all  Americans. 

The  French  officers  by  turns  paid  their  re 
spect  to  Washington.  Chastellux,  Noailles, 
Damas,  and  others  were  presented  by  Lafay 
ette  with  Laval,  Custine,  the  Deux  Fonts  broth 
ers,  Charlus,  Saint  Maime,  La  Corbiere,  and 
Washington  received  them  with  great  hearti 
ness,  and  spoke  to  and  of  them  in  high  praise — 
called  Duplessis  his  old  acquaintance. 

The  Vicomte  de  Noailles  in  his  "  Marins  et 
Soldats  Fran£ais  en  Amerique  pendant  la 

Guerre  de  1'Independance  desEtatsUnis,1778- 
71 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

1783"  (Paris,  1903),  emphasizes  the  hearty 
welcome  given  to  the  French  army  in  Phila 
delphia  on  its  way  to  Yorktown,  and  later  the 
unity  between  the  French  engineers  in  that 
force  and  those  in  the  American  army,  in  their 
operations  that  helped  so  greatly  to  the  sur 
render  of  Cornwallis.  Du  Portail,  Du  Gouvion, 
and  Rochefontaine  were  engineers  in  the  army 
under  Washington. 

He  also  gives  a  letter  written  about  Luzerne, 
the  French  Minister  to  the  United  States,  by 
Rochambeau,  saying  that  it  was  lucky  Luzerne 
had  joined  him,  for  his  house  in  Philadelphia 
was  struck  by  lightning,  his  bed,  etc.,  de 
stroyed  by  it,  and  an  artillery  officer  left  there 
on  account  of  illness,  killed, — "  a  great  argu 
ment  in  favor  of  Mr.  Franklin's  Conductors,  the 
owner  of  the  house  occupied  by  Luzerne  never 
permitting  one  to  be  put  up,  as  he  was  opposed 
to  Franklin's  plan." 

D'Autichamp,  who  was  made  a  brigadier  for 
his  servjees  at  Yorktown,  was  no  doubt  the 
one  who  later  joined  in  the  French  colony  at 
Asylum,  Pennsylvania.  Noailles  mentions 

among  the  French  officers  of  the  American  war, 

72 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

De  Laumoy,  who  served  as  colonel  of  engineers 
in  the  American  army,  was  in  Martinique  as 
second  in  command  in  1789-91,  and  came  to 
Philadelphia  as  an  exile,  remaining  there  until 
1803;  returned  to  France  and  was  put  on  the 
retired  list  in  1811,  and  died  in  Paris  in 
1832. 

Many  of  the  French  officers  procured 
employment  in  the  United  States.  Toussard 
and  Bernard  in  the  army,  L'Enfant  as  archi 
tect  and  engineer,  and  others  in  civil  life.  One 
of  the  most  ambitious  efforts  was  that  made 
by  Quesnay  de  Beaurepaire,  to  found  an 
international  Academy  of  Sciences  and  Let 
ters,  in  Richmond,  Virginia.  It  is  fully  de 
scribed  by  Professor  Herbert  B.  Adams  as  fol 
lows  :  l 

"The  United  States  Academy,  at  Rich 
mond,  a  survival  of  French  influence,  was  a 
very  remarkable  attempt  made  in  the  latter 
part  of  the  Eighteenth  Century  to  establish 
the  higher  education  in  this  country  upon  a 

1  Herbert  B.  Adams:  Thomas  Jefferson  and  the  Uni 
versity  of  Virginia  (United  States  Bureau  of  Educa 
tion,  Circular  of  Information  No.  1,  1888). 
73 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

grand  scale.  It  was  an  attempt,  growing  out 
of  the  French  alliance  with  the  United  States, 
to  plant  in  Richmond,  the  new  capital  of  Vir 
ginia,  a  kind  of  French  Academy  of  the  Arts 
and  Sciences,  with  branch  academies  in  Balti 
more,  Philadelphia,  and  New  York.  The  in 
stitution  was  to  be  at  once  national  and  inter 
national.  It  was  to  be  affiliated  with  the  royal 
societies  of  London,  Paris,  and  Brussels,  and 
with  other  learned  bodies  in  Europe.  It  was 
to  be  composed  of  a  president,  vice-president, 
six  counsellors,  a  treasurer- general,  a  secretary, 
a  recorder,  an  agent  for  taking  European  sub 
scriptions,  French  professors,  masters,  artists 
in  chief  attached  to  the  academy,  twenty-five 
resident  and  one  hundred  and  seventy-five  non 
resident  associates,  selected  from  the  best  talent 
of  the  Old  World  and  the  New.  The  Academy 
proposed  to  publish  yearly  from  its  own  press 
in  Paris  an  annual  report,  to  communicate  to 
France  and  other  countries  in  Europe  a  knowl 
edge  of  the  natural  products  of  North  America, 
and  to  send  specimens  of  its  flora  and  fauna 
abroad.  Experts  from  Paris  were  to  be  the 

teachers.      The   projector   was   the   Chevalier 

74 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

Quesnay  de  Beaurepaire,  grandson  of  the  great 
economist,  Quesnay.  He  came  to  this  country 
to  aid  in  the  Revolution,  and  served  as  captain 
in  Virginia  in  1777-78;  he  raised  sixty  thou 
sand  francs  and  had  one  hundred  subscribers. 
Their  names  were  printed  in  a  pamphlet  issued 
in  Paris  in  1788,  showing  that  he  had  support 
in  Baltimore,  Philadelphia,  Trenton,  Elizabeth, 
Newark,  and  New  York,  and  from  Steuben  and 
other  worthies.  Franklin's  daughter,  Mrs. 
Bache,  wrote  to  him  asking  his  support  to  this 
scheme  '  for  the  education  of  young  men  after 
they  have  graduated  from  college.'  The  cor 
nerstone  was  laid  in  Richmond  June  24,  1786, 
in  the  presence  of  local  authorities  and  of  a 
number  of  French  supporters  —  Raguet, 
Audrin,  La  Case,  Omphery,  Noel,  Dossiere, 
Bartholomy,  Cureau,  and  Duval.  He  returned 
to  Paris,  secured  a  favorable  report  of  a  com 
mission  of  the  Academy  of  Science  consisting 
of  La  Lande,  Thouin,  and  Lavoisier,  certi 
fied  by  Condorcet,  and  of  the  Academy  of 
Painting,  signed  by  Vernet  and  others.  He 
enlisted  the  interest  of  Beaumarchais,  La  Fay- 
ette,  Houdon,  Malesherbes,  Lavoisier,  Luzerne, 

75 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

Montalembert,  and  Rochefoucauld  in  Paris, 
and  in  London  of  Bancroft,  Paine,  Dr.  Richard 
Price,  Jonathan  Trumbull,  Rutledge,  Benja 
min  West,  and  Jefferson.  Quesnay's  plan  in 
cluded  schools  for  foreign  languages,  mathe 
matics,  design,  architecture,  painting,  sculpt 
ure,  engraving,  physics,  astronomy,  geog 
raphy,  chemistry,  mineralogy,  botany,  anat 
omy  and  natural  history.  The  building  was 
completed,  and  later  became  a  theatre,  and  was 
used  for  the  meeting  of  the  Virginia  Conven 
tion  which,  in  1788,  ratified  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States.  One  professor  was  ap 
pointed,  Dr.  John  Rouelle,  to  be  mineralogist- 
in-chief  and  Professor  of  Natural  History, 
Chemistry,  and  Botany,  but  it  is  doubtful  if  he 
ever  came  to  this  country.  The  French  Revo 
lution  put  a  stop  to  the  plan,  and  all  that  is 
known  of  it  is  from  the  rare  copies  of  Quesnay's 
Memoir." 

"  A  French  Volunteer  in  the  War  of  Inde 
pendence  "  is  the  story  of  the  Chevalier  de 
Pontgibaud  (translated  by  R.  B.  Douglass, 
published  by  Carrington,  Paris,  1897).  He 

was  one  of  the  many  French  soldiers  who  had 
76 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

served  under  Rochambeau,  and  in  his  three 
visits  to  this  country  had  abundant  opportunity 
to  contrast  the  people  and  the  country.  He 
speaks  of  the  colony  at  Asylum  in  Pennsyl 
vania,  founded  mainly  by  De  Noailles,  for  both 
in  France  and  in  the  United  States  it  attracted 
much  attention,  and  the  story  of  the  emigrant 
settlers,  and  their  hardships,  was  the  subject 
of  a  great  deal  of  discussion.  He  says  that  in 
1793  six  hundred  French  refugees  from  St. 
Domingo  arrived  in  Philadelphia  at  the  time 
of  a  severe  outbreak  of  yellow  fever.  The 
French  Patriotic  Society  contributed  eight 
hundred  dollars  and  a  fund  of  eleven  thousand 
dollars  was  raised  for  their  relief.  He  men 
tions,  too,  the  arrival  in  1798  of  a  large  num 
ber  of  French  refugees  with  many  negroes 
from  Port  au  Prince  in  Philadelphia,  and  the 
effort  of  General  Toussard,  then  in  command 
of  Fort  Mifflin,  near  the  city,  to  relieve  their 
distress.  Later  on  he  reports  that  eight  vessels 
brought  two  hundred  and  twenty-seven  French 
refugees. 


EARLY  FRENCH  TRAVELLERS  IN  THE 
UNITED  STATES 

CHATEAUBRIAND  came  to  the  United  States 
in  1791  with  a  letter  to  Washington  from 
the  Marquis  de  la  Rouarie,  who  as  Colonel 
Armand  had  borne  a  creditable  part  in  the 
American  War  of  Independence.  At  that  time 
there  was  an  increasing  emigration  from 
France  to  escape  the  growing  violence  of  the 
French  Revolution.  On  the  shores  of  the  Ohio 
an  asylum  was  opened  in  the  land  of  liberty  to 
those  who  fled  from  its  excesses.  Landing  in 
Baltimore,  he  went  to  Philadelphia,  where  he 
found  many  exiles  from  France  and  St. 
Domingo.  Chateaubriand,  in  republication  of 
his  works  in  his  old  age,  notes  the  French  place 
names,  dwelt  on  the  county  of  Bourbon  with 
its  county-seat  Paris,  in  Kentucky,  and  the  town 
of  Versailles  in  that  State,  and  the  county  of 

Marengo   in   Alabama.      He   quotes    Pere  du 

78 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

Creux,  a  Jesuit  writer,  as  authority  for  the 
fact  that  a  French  colony  was  established  in 
Onondaga,  New  York,  in  1655,  and  Charle- 
voix  as  mentioning  that  the  missionaries  sent 
there  in  1654  established  a  French  colony  in 
1658,  which  was  abandoned  in  1668, — but 
these  are  both  doubtful. 

Chateaubriand  spent  only  a  few  months  in 
the  United  States,  but  he  drew  from  earlier 
writers,  such  as  the  Abbe  Raynal,  and  from 
earlier  travellers,  Bartram  and  others,  much  of 
the  material  for  his  novels,  poems,  historical 
essays,  etc.  His  stay  in  Baltimore,  Philadel 
phia,  New  York,  and  Albany,  seems  to  have 
left  little  trace  among  their  usually  hospitable 
citizens.  In  Baltimore  the  Sulpicians  have  a 
tradition  from  one  of  their  order  who  was  his 
fellow  passenger  from  France,  that  Chateau 
briand  tried  to  convert  some  of  his  young  men 
to  the  liberalism  then  fashionable.  In  Phila 
delphia  he  presented  his  letter  from  Colonel 
Armand,  of  the  American  Army,  but  later 
known  as  Marquis  de  la  Rouarie,  leader  of  the 
Bretons  in  their  counter-revolution  for  the 
Royalists,  and  after  some  delay,  owing  to 
79 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

Washington's  absence  in  the  South,  was  re 
ceived.  He  says  that  Washington  was  very 
incredulous  as  to  the  discovery  of  a  northwest 
passage,  the  ostensible  object  of  his  visit  to 
America,  but  Chateaubriand  said :  "  It  is  an 
easier  task  than  to  create  a  nation,  and  that 
you  have  done."  Washington  invited  him  to 
dinner  and  he  accepted.  He  compares  Wash 
ington  and  Bonaparte,  much  to  the  advantage 
of  the  great  American,  who  left  the  United 
States  as  the  trophy  won  by  him  in  battle,  while 
Bonaparte  deprived  his  country  of  liberty  and 
betrayed  it,  and  dying  left  a  name  without 
blessing.  "  Washington,"  he  writes,  "  was  the 
representative  of  the  needs,  the  ideas,  the  in 
telligence,  the  opinions  of  his  time ;  he  advanced 
the  movement  of-  its  best  intellects ;  he  sacrificed 
everything  for  his  country;  his  glory  is  the 
common  patrimony  of  growing  civilization,  his 
fame  a  sanctuary  whence  flow  endless  blessings 
for  the  world." 

Chateaubriand  had   seen   both  Washington 

and  Bonaparte,  and  as  he  suffered  at  the  hands 

of  the  latter  for  his  opposition,  was  naturally 

inclined  to  find  in  Washington  a  much  purer, 

80 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

better  and  higher  type  of  heroism.  Much  of 
his  recollection  of  his  short  journey  in  the 
United  States  is  in  his  Historical  Essays.  He 
made  a  pilgrimage  to  Lexington,  the  first  bat 
tle-ground  of  the  American  Revolution,  and 
he  describes  his  visit  to  Niagara  with  more 
poetry  than  fact.  On  his  way  from  Albany 
through  the  solitary  forests,  he  found  a  French 
man,  once  cook  for  Rochambeau,  teaching  the 
savage  Indians  to  dance — they  half  naked,  with 
rings  in  their  noses,  feathers  in  their  hair;  he 
powdered,  in  full  dress,  fiddle  in  hand,  and  tak 
ing  his  pay  in  poultry  and  bear  meat.  What 
he  saw  of  Niagara  is  described  in  his  novel, 
Atala,  but  his  Travels  to  the  South  are  largely 
drawn  from  Bartram's  and  other  books.  Re 
turned  to  Philadelphia,  he  heard  of  the  execu 
tion  of  the  king,  and  at  once  returned  to  France 
and  then  to  England,  where  he  began  the  long 
series  of  books  on  American  subjects  that  gave 
him  fame. 

More  of  a  poet  and  a  romancer  than  a 
serious  statesman  or  a  man  of  letters,  he  has 
said  little  that  shows  how  he  was  impressed 

by   his   short   stay   in  America.     He   was   in 
6  81 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

Baltimore  and  Philadelphia  at  a  time  when 
many  of  his  countrymen  found  refuge  there, 
but  he  seems  to  have  been  but  little  with  them. 
His  companions  on  his  travels  were  Hollanders, 
representatives  of  the  large  land-owners  of  that 
country.  While  the  Philosophical  Society  and 
the  Binghams  in  Philadelphia  were  opening 
their  doors  to  the  French  exiles  of  all  political 
opinions — Noailles,  Omer  Talon,  Talleyrand, 
Volney,  Brissot  de  Warville,  Moreau,  and  many 
others  are  of  record  in  one  way  or  another — 
there  is  no  mention  of  Chateaubriand,  whose 
fame  was  to  exceed  that  of  all  our  other  French 
visitors. 

"  A  Sketch  of  the  United  States  from  1800 
to  1810,"  by  Chevalier  Felix  de  Beaujour,  at 
one  time  consul  general  of  France  in  the  United 
States,  was  not  allowed  to  be  published  in 
France,  on  the  score  of  its  favorable  tone 
towards  Great  Britain,  but  in  1814  a  transla 
tion  was  published  in  London,  with  notes,  etc., 
by  William  Walton.  The  editor  said  the 
author's  aim  was  to  take  from  Great  Britain 
its  trade  with  the  United  States,  and  the  notes 
are  intended  to  correct  his  hostility  to  the 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

English  system  of  trade,  so  soon  to  lead  to  war 
with  the  United  States. 

General  Victor  Collot  had  served  with 
Rochambeau  in  the  American  War  of  Inde 
pendence,  later  became  governor  of  Guade 
loupe,  until  its  capture  by  the  English,  then 
came  to  Philadelphia,  and  with  his  adjutant, 
Warin,  by  authority  of  Adet,  the  French  Min 
ister  to  the  United  States,  under  an  order  dated 
"  Phila.  24th  ventose,  4th  Year  of  the  Repub 
lic  One  and  Indivisible,"  made  a  long  tour 
through  North  America,  of  which  the  account 
was  not  published  until  1826,  long  after  the 
death  of  the  travellers. 

Collot  speaks  of  the  few  memorials  of  Jesuits 
or  other  missionaries,  written  "  more  than  sixty 
years  since  "  (his  own  journey  began  in  1796), 
as  the  only  monuments  which  France  can  pro 
duce  of  its  labors  and  researches  in  North 
America.  His  journey  took  him  through 
Pennsylvania  to  the  Monongahela  and  Ohio. 
Pittsburg  he  found  a  town  of  one  hundred  and 
fifty  houses.  Thence  he  started  in  his  own 
boat,  purchased  at  McKeesport,  with  two 
Canadians  and  three  Americans,  for  New 
83 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

Orleans,  and  he  gives  a  minute  record  of  his 
daily  observations.  In  Marietta  he  found  a 
few  French  families,  unfortunate  victims  of 
American  land  speculation  on  the  part  of  the 
Scioto  Company.  He  blames  the  French  for 
their  folly  in  trying  to  establish  a  colony  with 
out  using  the  least  precaution  to  safeguard 
their  ownership,  but  he  condemns  unqualifiedly 
the  managers  who  abandoned  the  poor  settlers. 
At  Gallipolis  there  was  a  population  reckoned 
at  ninety  to  ninety-five  men,  and  forty  to  forty- 
five  women,  the  wreck  of  the  Scioto  community. 
Congress  granted  seven  acres  to  each  family, 
not  sufficient  for  their  maintenance,  and  there 
fore  they  were  extremely  miserable;  the  site 
unhealthy,  the  land  bad,  the  houses  small  log 
huts,  flanked  by  three  block-houses,  the  whole 
palisaded  with  great  picquets,  the  place  dirty 
and  the  abode  of  wretchedness.  Congress,  in 
1796,  voted  each  family  two  hundred  and  fifty 
acres  of  land  near  the  Little  Scioto,  as  indem 
nity  for  the  suffering,  robbery,  and  murder  of 
which  they  had  been  the  victims,  through  the 
carelessness,  perfidy,  and  knavery  of  the  agents 
of  the  Land  Company  which  had  brought  them 

here. 

84 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

At  Louisville  he  found  a  suburb  laid  out  by 
a  French  settler;  at  St.  Vincent's,  a  small 
village  of  one  hundred  families,  the  greater 
part  French,  ruined  by  General  Clark  during 
the  last  war,  as  were  also  the  settlements  in  Illi 
nois.  Another  small  French  establishment  was 
Onia  or  Oniatenon,  a  trading  point  for  furs. 
On  the  Mississippi  there  were  French  settle 
ments  on  both  banks  of  the  river.  At  St.  Louis 
the  two  hundred  French  were  excellent  patri 
ots,  all  devoted  to  France,  laborers  in  easy  cir 
cumstances,  and  prosperous  merchants,  and  in 
other  places  near  at  hand  were  considerable 
settlements  of  French. 


VI 

FRENCH  EXILES  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

THE  records  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church 
form  an  important  share  in  the  historical  col 
lections  of  that  body. 

The  American  Catholic  Historical  Society 
has  printed  in  its  Proceedings,  the  registers 
of  the  churches  in  Philadelphia,  St.  Mary's 
and  St.  Joseph's;  in  them  are  the  births,  mar 
riages,  and  deaths  of  many  French  families, 
refugees  from  St.  Domingo  and  other  West 
Indian  French  colonies  at  their  sanguinary 
revolutions.  Father  Cibot,  who  made  some  of 
these  entries,  was  himself  one  of  the  exiles  from 
St.  Domingo.  Among  the  names  on  these 
registers  are  those  of  De  Serres,  Drouillard, 
Langlade,  Gobert,  Balestrier,  St.  Didier,  Petit, 
Bauduy,  Roseau,  Des  Cloches,  Chaudron,  De  la 
Lande-Ormund  (in  this  case  the  husband  came 
from  Brittany,  the  wife  from  Pondicherry). 
This  colony  of  French  exiles  was  long  one  of 
86 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

the  characteristic  features  of  Philadelphia. 
Gathered  together  on  Front  Street  and  out 
Spruce  and  Pine  as  far  as  Eighth  Street,  there 
were  the  homes  of  merchants,  doctors,  lawyers, 
and  men  of  letters. 

For  years  the  schools  kept  by  Frenchmen 
and  women, — Picots,  Guillous,  Segoignes,  Bol- 
mars,  Grellots — were  the  best  in  the  country. 
In  1793  the  French  Benevolent  Society  was 
organized,  and  on  its  list  of  members  were  the 
names  of  De  1'Isle,  Duval,  Clapier,  Laval, 
Bujac,  De  la  Roche,  Gardette,  Droz,  Brugiere, 
Monges,  Garesche,  Dabadie,  Maillard,  Pintard, 
Crousillat,  Rodrigues,  Dutilh,  Deschapelles, 
Mazurie,  Breuil,  Prevost,  Besson,  Belin,  Trou- 
bat,  Rousseau,  Mathieu,  Salignac,  Laussatt, 
and  later  on  such  names  as  Duponceau,  Girard, 
Thouron,  Turreau,  Rozet,  Vauclain,  Laval, 
Vanuxem.  From  that  day  to  this  the  list  at 
tests  the  presence  in  Philadelphia  of  French 
families  proud  of  the  history  of  this  useful 
organization  and  still  continuing  its  useful  and 
modest  career  of  benevolence.  A  sad  record 
of  these  exiles  is  found  in  the  monuments  in 
St.  Mary's  Roman  Catholic  graveyard,  to  the 
87 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

Melizets,  the  Laussats,  the  Lejambres,  the 
Bouviers,  the  Bories,  the  Keatings,  the  Tes- 
sieres,  and  others. 

In  "  Reminiscences  of  Wilmington,  Dela 
ware  "  by  E.  Montgomery,  (Philadelphia, 
1851),  there  is  mention  of  many  French  exiles 
settled  there;  M.  Martel,  the  tutor  of  Aaron 
Burr's  daughter,  and  Dr.  Bayard  and  Dr. 
Capelle,  who  had  served  under  Lafayette  in  the 
Revolution;  I.  Isambrie,  a  soldier  under  Na 
poleon  until  his  return  from  Egypt,  with  his 
wife,  a  native  of  St.  Domingo, — he  took  Mar 
shal  Grouchy  and  General  Moreau  out  on  shoot 
ing  excursions;  Ferdin  and  Baudry;  la  Mar 
quise  de  Sourci;  Dr.  Didie,  the  Garesche 
family,  Peter  Provenchere,  a  tutor  of  the  Due 
de  Berri,  and  his  relative  the  wife  of  John 
Keating  of  Philadelphia;  Mrs.  Capron,  who 
kept  a  successful  school;  M.  Bergerac,  a 
teacher,  later  a  professor  in  St.  Mary's  College, 
Baltimore;  M.  Sarsney;  and  with  these  exiles, 
came  many  colored  people,  who  were  respected 
for  good  qualities.  Thus  in  Wilmington,  Dela 
ware,  too,  the  later  French  exiles  found  shelter, 

and  many  of  them  employment  with  the  Du- 

88 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

ponts  and  Garesches  and  Lammots  in  their 
large  and  important  industries.  Among  the 
French  settlers  in  Philadelphia  was  John 
Bouvier,  who  came  in  1802,  at  fifteen  years  of 
age,  with  his  family,  from  the  south  of  France. 
Quakers,  they  were  warmly  welcomed ;  the 
father  died  of  yellow  fever,  the  son  became  a 
printer  and  later  a  lawyer,  and  is  well  known 
by  his  "  Institutes,"  his  Law  Dictionary  and 
other  works. 

As  early  as  1803  a  colony  of  French  Trap- 
pists  arrived  in  Baltimore,  and  soon  made  a 
home  in  Adams  County,  Pennsylvania;  thence 
going  to  near  Louisville,  and  making  settle 
ments  in  Kentucky.  Among  the  Roman 
Catholic  clergy  were  many  Frenchmen,  among 
them  Archbishop  Cheverus  of  Bordeaux,  who 
was  for  many  years  Bishop  of  Boston,  Massa 
chusetts.  He  kept  in  touch  with  his  old 
parishioners  down  to  the  end  of  his  long  and 
honored  life,  and  he  was  but  one  of  many 
French  priests  in  the  United  States. 

Among  the  noteworthy  early  French  priests 
was  the  Rev.  Louis  Barth  de  Walbach,  of  Al 
sace.  Born  at  Munster  in  1764,  he  arrived  in 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

Baltimore  in  1791,  and  after  long  years  of 
active  service  in  the  ministry  of  his  church,  he 
and  his  brother,  General  John  de  Walbach,  a 
veteran  of  the  American  War  of  Independence, 
quietly  lived  in  Georgetown  College,  District  of 
Columbia,  where  the  former  died  in  1844,  the 
latter  in  Baltimore,  in  1857. 


VII 

FRENCH  SETTLERS  AND  EXILES  IN  SOUTH 
CAROLINA  1 

THE  Huguenot  emigrants,  who  arrived  in 
Charleston,  South  Carolina,  1680-86,  began 
their  French  Church  about  1687  on  land  given 
by  Ralph  Izard;  Isaac  Mazyck,  one  of  the 
earliest  and  wealthiest  of  his  race,  gave  gener 
ously  to  its  erection  and  support. 

The  prosperity  of  the  Huguenots  aroused 
the  j  ealousy  of  their  neighbors ;  many  of  the 
refugees  being  possessed  of  considerable  prop 
erty  in  France,  had  sold  it  and  brought  the 
money  to  England.  Having  purchased  large 
tracts  of  land  with  this  money,  they  settled 
in  more  advantageous  circumstances  than  the 
poorer  sort  of  the  English  emigrants.  Hav 
ing  clergymen  of  their  own  persuasion,  for 
whom  they  entertained  the  highest  respect  and 

l" Charleston:  The  Place  and  the  People,"  by  Mrs. 
St.  Julien  Ravenel.     New  York.     MacmUlan,  1906. 
91 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

admiration,  they  were  disposed  to  encourage 
them  as  far  as  their  narrow  circumstances  would 
permit.  The  two  pastors  who  accompanied 
them  were  the  Reverend  Elias  Prioleau,  of  the 
Church  of  Pons  in  Saintonge,  whose  grand 
father,  a  member  of  the  ducal  house  of  Priuli, 
had  surrendered  rank  and  fortune  for  the 
Protestant  faith  sixty  years  before ;  and  the 
Reverend  Florente  Philippe  Trouillard.  Prio 
leau  was  dead  (his  monument  may  be  seen  in 
the  French  Protestant  Church  of  Charleston), 
but  M.  Trouillard  and  his  "  ancien  "  or  elder, 
M.  Boutelle,  petitioned  the  Proprietors  on  the 
injustice  done  to  their  people.  The  Proprietors 
in  answer,  ordered  that  the  French  have  equal 
justice  with  Englishmen  and  enjoy  the  same 
privileges.  In  1697  an  act  was  passed  making 
aliens  free  of  this  part  of  the  province  and 
granting  liberty  of  conscience  to  all  Protes 
tants,  with  a  preamble  acknowledging  their 
loyalty  and  industry.  When  in  1706  the 
Huguenots  outside  of  the  town  cast  in  their  lot 
with  the  Episcopal  Church,  those  of  Charleston, 
having  a  church  with  ample  endowments,  kept 
and  preserve  to  this  day  their  own  independent 
92 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

organization.  In  1786  the  Huguenots  estab 
lished  in  a  small  way  the  South  Carolina  Club, 
still  in  active  life,  which  besides  assisting  in 
digent  widows  and  orphans,  established  a  school 
for  boys  and  girls. 

In  the  Revolutionary  War,  the  Huguenots 
furnished  such  soldiers  as  Motte,  grandson  of 
the  first  immigrant  of  that  name;  Marion, 
Huger,  Robert,  and  many  others.  In  1792 
the  French  refugees  from  St.  Domingo  found 
shelter  in  New  Orleans  and  Charleston,  where 
they  were  received  with  kindness  and  sympathy. 
The  townsfolk  threw  open  their  houses  to  re 
ceive  the  fugitives.  Nothing  could  exceed  their 
courage  and  cheerfulness.  Uncomplaining, 
gay,  and  pathetically  grateful,  they  won  the 
esteem  and  respect  of  their  hosts.  No  one  had 
cause  to  repent  his  hospitality.  For  their 
assistance  the  city  gave  $12,500,  besides  the 
proceeds  of  a  concert  and  many  gifts,  and  the 
United  States  government  appropriated  $1750. 
This  help  enabled  many  of  them  to  begin  some 
occupation ;  they  would  take  no  more  than  was 
absolutely  necessary,  and  quickly  bestirred 

themselves  for  their  own  support.     They  were 
93 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

accomplished  in  music,  painting,  and  the  lan 
guages,  and  pupils  were  soon  found.  Some  of 
the  gentlemen  were  good  musicians  and  entered 
the  orchestra  of  the  theatre,  which  greatly 
benefited  by  their  skill.  Thirteen  of  the  best 
teachers  in  town  were  refugees.  Two  of  the 
schools  established  by  them  were  long  the  most 
fashionable.  In  an  inferior  class,  the  best 
bakers,  pastrycooks,  dressmakers,  hairdressers, 
and  clearstarchers,  were  refugees  or  their  chil 
dren,  and  they  were  the  best  dancing-teachers, 
too.  A  few  who  had  some  knowledge  of  busi 
ness  became  successful  merchants,  and  more 
than  one  was  distinguished  in  medicine.  One 
of  these,  Dr.  Polony,  was  the  most  eminent, 
being  a  member  of  learned  European  societies 
and  a  correspondent  of  Buffon.  Seven  years 
after  their  arrival,  the  Due  de  la  Rochefoucauld 
Liancourt  visited  Charleston,  and  in  his  Travels 
speaks  warmly  of  the  gentleness,  courtesy  and 
agreeability  of  these  refugees,  and  the  untiring 
kindness  and  liberality  of  the  citizens,  who  were 
well  rewarded  by  the  example  of  good  manners 
and  accomplishments  which  embellished  society. 

The  mother  of  Joseph  Jefferson  was  one  of 
94 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

these  refugees,  and  the  great  actor  told  the 
story  of  her  life  and  its  many  vicissitudes  in 
his  autobiography. 

In  the  churchyard  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  are  many  graves  of  St.  Domingan 
refugees,  among  them  those  of  the  daughters 
of  Count  de  Grasse,  the  commander  of  the 
French  auxiliary  fleet  during  the  Revolution. 

In  1825  Lafayette  visited  Charleston,  and 
was  greeted  by  Colonel  Huger,  who  had  risked 
his  life  in  a  vain  effort  to  rescue  him  from 
prison.  He  renewed  his  acquaintance  with  the 
survivors  of  his  campaigns  in  the  Revolution, 
with  General  Pinckney,  and  the  daughter  of 
General  Greene,  and  the  widow  of  Colonel 
Washington.  Later  his  nephew  De  Lasteyrie 
visited  Charleston  and  married  a  Charleston 
girl,  Lafayette  Seabrook,  named  in  honor  of 
his  uncle's  visit  to  her  parents  in  1825.  In 
the  midst  of  the  excitement  of  nullification  in 
1833,  a  subscription  ball  was  given  under  the 
patronage  of  Count  de  Choiseul,  for  "  poor  old 
M.  Fayolle,  who  had  lost  his  all  in  a  ship 
wreck,"  an  old  St.  Domingan  refugee,  who  had 

taught  half  Charleston  to  dance.     Choiseul  was 
95 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

for  many  years  French  consul  at  Charleston; 
a  royalist,  his  eldest  son  fell  fighting  gallantly 
as  captain  of  the  Louisiana  Zouaves  in  the  Civil 
War,  and  the  second  son  became  Marquis  de 
Choiseul. 


VIII 

FRENCH  SETTLEMENTS  IN  THE  WEST 
AND  IN  CANADA 

"  ORIGINE  et  Progres  de  la  Mission  du  Ken 
tucky  "  (Paris,  1821),  is  a  pamphlet  giving 
an  encouraging  account  of  the  French  settled 
in  that  State.  Twenty-four  Catholic  families 
came  to  Kentucky  in  1785  from  Maryland; 
their  number  increased,  and  in  1793  Bishop  Car 
roll  of  Baltimore  sent  M.  Badin,  of  Orleans, 
who  for  many  years  had  spiritual  charge  of  the 
Catholics  in  Kentucky,  while  M.  Rivet  of 
Limoges  came  in  1795  as  vicar  general  to 
Vincennes,  on  the  Wabash,  in  Indiana.  In 
1797  and  1799  Messrs.  Fournier  and  Salmon 
of  Blois,  followed  by  a  number  of  French 
priests  exiled  from  France  by  the  Revolution, 
came  to  Kentucky.  M.  Olivier  of  Nantes  set 
tled  at  Prairie  du  Rocher,  Illinois,  and  served 
there  and  at  Kaskaskia,  Cahokia,  Saint  Louis, 
Ste.  Genevieve,  etc.  In  1808  an  episcopate  was 
7  97 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

established  at  Bardstown,  Kentucky,  where 
later  French  Trappists  established  a  convent 
with  a  branch  at  Cahokia,  in  which  many 
Indians  were  educated.  At  Gallipolis,  in  Ohio, 
where  in  1791  there  was  a  colony  of  French 
people,  victims  of  a  miserable  speculation,  who 
had  mostly  abandoned  the  place,  Messrs. 
Barrieres  and  Badin  baptized  forty  children  in 
1793,  and  the  whole  village  was  inspired  by  the 
service. 

The  popularity  of  the  French  is  attested  by 
the  names,  Bourbon  County  and  Paris,  Ver 
sailles,  Louisville,  in  Kentucky.  There  were 
five  Frenchmen  bishops,— M.  Marechal  of 
Orleans,  in  Baltimore;  M.  Cheverus  of  Paris, 
in  Boston;  M.  Flaget  of  Auvergne,  in  Ken 
tucky;  M.  David  of  Nantes,  his  coadjutor;  M. 
Dubourg  of  St.  Louis,  Bishop  of  Louisiana  and 
Florida.  M.  Flaget  came  to  America  in  1792 
with  Messrs.  David  and  Badin.  At  Bardstown 
many  important  schools  were  under  the 
care  of  French  priests.  An  appeal  was  made 
to  the  people  of  France  to  help  them  with 
money,  books,  church  ornaments,  etc.  It  would 

be  interesting  to  know  how  far  it  was  answered. 
98 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

Drovine's  "  Les  Royalistes  Fran9ais  refugies 
an  Canada  "  (Quebec,  1905),  gives  many  facts 
of  interest.  In  1793  Abbe  Des  jar  dins  recalled 
from  Gallipolis  Dom  Didier,  a  Benedictine, 
from  the  Abbey  of  St.  Denis.  He  says :  Galli 
polis  was  founded  in  1790  on  the  banks  of  the 
Ohio.  In  1796  the  colony  numbered  about 
eighty,  and  in  1805  this  was  reduced  to  twenty. 
Asylum,  on  the  Susquehanna,  was  founded  in 
1794  by  Messrs.  Noailles  and  Talon;  it  began 
with  thirty  houses,  and  included  among  its 
number,  M.  Blacons,  deputy  to  the  constituent 
assembly ;  Bee  de  Lievre,  canon ;  Archdeacon 
Toul;  Abbe  Fromentin,  Abbe  Charles,  M.  d'An- 
delot  of  the  French  infantry ;  Du  Petit  Thou- 
ars,  officer  of  the  navy ;  Brevost  of  Paris ;  Mme. 
d'Autrepont.  These  settlers  became  farmers 
and  made  potash,  sugar,  molasses,  and  vinegar. 
Many  priests  came  to  Canada,  and  Drovine 
tells  their  story  with  great  fulness  and  detail. 
The  same  ship  that  brought  Chateaubriand  to 
Baltimore  carried  five  priests  and  two  semin 
arists.  After  a  voyage  of  three  months  they 
landed  and  soon  established  a  seminary  near 

Baltimore,  in  1791 ;  later,  in  1792,  eight  more 
99 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

arrived,  and  in  1793-4-5-6-8,  new  arrivals 
came,  in  all  twenty-nine,  while  forty-five  went 
to  Canada.  Of  the  former  six  became  bishops, 
one  an  Archbishop  and  Cardinal,  Cheverus  of 
Boston,  later  of  Bordeaux.  While  the  clergy 
were  helped  by  large  subscriptions  and  by  the 
government,  an  effort  was  made  to  quicken  the 
emigration  of  lay  royalists  to  Canada.  Cha 
teaubriand  says  that  in  London  some  solxi 
coal,  others  made  hats,  some  taught  French. 
Then  it  was  "  a  proposal  for  a  subscription  to 
form  Colonies  in  Canada  of  French  Emigrants, 
Royalists,  and  ecclesiastics  "  was  published  in 
London,  and  its  execution  was  undertaken  by 
Count  Joseph  de  Puisaye,  who  had  been  a 
soldier  by  turns  in  the  Cent  Suisses,  in  the 
National  Guard,  in  the  Federal  Army,  at  the 
head  of  the  Chouans  in  Brittany,  where  he 
organized  a  Military  Council  and  issued  three 
millions  of  paper  money  like  the  assignats  of 
the  Republic.  He  went  to  London  and  enlisted 
the  help  of  Pitt,  who  gave  him  a  command  in 
the  unsuccessful  attack  on  Quiberon,  which 
was  repelled  by  Hoche.  Thiers  says  he  had 

great  intelligence,  a  rare  talent  for  organiza- 
100 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

tion,  activity  of  mind  and  body,  and  vast  ambi 
tion.  He  wrote  a  paper  on  the  establishment 
of  a  French  colony  in  Canada,  and  five  hundred 
persons  applied  to  join — eight  marquises,  two 
bishops,  one  Benedictine  monk,  two  priests,  one 
doctor,  six  counts,  one  baron,  many  naval 
officers,  seven  Chevaliers  de  St.  Louis,  a  prin 
cess,  a  countess,  a  marquise  and  a  long  list  of 
other  noble  personages.  Out  of  thirty-eight 
who  actually  emigrated  few  of  the  people  of 
rank  really  left  England.  Arrived  in  Canada  in 
October,  1798,  Puisaye,  strongly  recommended 
by  the  home  authorities,  was  allowed  five  thou 
sand  acres,  and  land  was  set  apart  on  and  near 
Lake  Ontario  for  the  settlers  and  a  town  and 
farms.  Puisaye  was  made  a  justice  of  the 
peace  and  commandant  of  a  corps  with  one 
major  commanding,  two  captains,  two  lieu 
tenants,  four  sub-lieutenants,  one  adjutant,  one 
quartermaster,  one  chaplain,  one  surgeon  and 
an  assistant,  six  sergeants,  eight  corporals,  and 
one  hundred  and  fifty  soldiers.  The  land, 
over  four  thousand  acres,  was  distributed 
among  the  settlers,  but  of  the  forty,  only 

twenty-five   remained.      Puisaye   himself   soon 
101 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

went  back  to  England,  and  others  followed,  so 
that  the  colony  was  practically  abandoned. 
Later  a  mysterious  person  settled  near  Trois 
Rivieres,  who  it  is  supposed  was  the  Due  de 
Vicence,  Caulaincourt,  one  of  Napoleon's  gen 
erals  ;  he  came  in  1816  and  left  in  1820,  but  the 
mystery  of  his  identity  was  never  really  solved. 
Most  of  the  clergymen  remained  and  many 
were  useful  parish  priests,  some  teachers,  others 
high  dignitaries  of  their  church. 


IX 

BRILLAT  SAVARIN  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

BBJLLAT  SAVARIN  came  as  an  exile  from  the 
French  Revolution  in  1793,  and  resided  three 
years  in  New  York,  where  he  taught  French 
and  played  in  the  orchestra  of  a  theatre,  re 
turning  to  France  in  1796,  where  he  filled 
important  posts,  and  died  in  1826. 

In  his  "  Physiologie  du  Gout "  he  says  that 
in  Boston  he  found  Julien  keeping  a  restau 
rant — he  had  been  cook  for  the  Archbishop  of 
Bordeaux;  Brillat  Savarin  showed  him  how  to 
cook  eggs  with  cheese,  and  it  was  so  popular 
that  Julien  sent  him  in  New  York  part  of  a 
young  roe  deer  from  Canada.  Captain  Collet 
made  quite  a  fortune  in  selling  ices  and  sorbets 
in  New  York  in  1794-95.  In  New  York  he 
met  the  Vcte.  de  Massue  and  M.  Fehr  of 
Marseilles,  exiles,  too.  In  Connecticut  he  dined 
at  a  farm  house  near  Hartford  (in  October, 

1794),  on  corned  beef,  stewed  goose,  a  haunch 
103 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

of  mutton,  vegetables  in  plenty,  and  two  huge 
foaming  pots  of  excellent  cider,  and  later  ex 
cellent  tea.  They  shot  next  day  partridges, 
squirrels,  and  wild  turkeys;  then  returned  to 
supper,  ate  like  famished  men,  with  an  ample 
bowl  of  punch  to  crown  the  entertainment. 
His  host,  M.  Barlow,  had  served  in  the  War  of 
Independence,  and  spoke  in  high  praise  of 
"  the  Marquis  "  La  Fayette.  The  daughter 
sang  "  Yankee  Doodle,"  "  Major  Andre's 
Lament,"  and  other  popular  songs.  His  host 
said  in  bidding  him  adieu,  that  he  was  a  happy 
man — he  owned  his  property,  his  daughters 
knit  his  stockings,  his  shoes  and  clothes  were 
made  from  his  own  flocks,  which  provided  his 
food,  too;  he  had  no  locks  on  his  doors,  taxes 
were  nominal,  Congress  favors  our  rising  in 
dustry,  agents  visit  us  to  purchase  what  we 
have  to  sell — e.  g.9  flour  at  $24  per  ton  [sic], 
the  usual  price  having  been  $8.  The  sound  of 
the  drum  is  never  heard  except  on  the  Fourth 
of  July,  and  only  on  that  day  soldiers  are  seen. 
During  his  ride  home,  Savarin  was  think 
ing  how  to  cook  his  turkey,  and  he  gave  a 

dinner  at  Hartford  to  his  American  friends, 
104 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

with  the  wings  of  the  partridges  "  en  papillote," 
the  gray  squirrels  stewed  in  Madeira,  while 
the  roast  turkey  was  pleasing  to  the  eye,  flat 
tering  to  the  smell  and  delicious  to  the  taste; 
and  when  the  last  particle  had  vanished,  there 
was  a  universal  murmur  of  applause. 

His  friend  shot  wild  turkeys  in  Carolina 
and  found  them  excellent,  of  much  better  flavor 
than  those  reared  in  Europe.  Savarin, 
who  was  a  cousin  of  Mme.  Recamier,  always 
spoke  with  pleasure  of  his  stay  in  the  United 
States. 


FRENCH  LAND  COMPANIES  IN  THE 
UNITED  STATES 

GOUVEENEUR  MORRIS  was  busy  with  land 
sales  abroad,  as  well  as  with  diplomatic  mis 
sions,  and  to  his  great  friends,  for  he  was  as 
rich  in  them  as  in  American  lands,  he  was  con 
stantly  pointing  out  the  great  future  for  invest 
ment  in  them.  In  1794  he  notes  that  Le  Ray 
de  Chaumont  had  been  ahead  of  him  in  dealing 
with  the  Baron  de  Coppet,  Necker.  Already 
in  1789  he  had  broached  to  his  friends  in 
France  a  plan  for  a  settlement  on  the  banks  of 
the  river  St.  Lawrence  for  those  who  want 
to  go  out  to  America.  In  1790  he  writes  to 
Robert  Morris  that  frequent  applications  were 
made  to  him  for  advice  about  American  lands, 
but  he  felt  that  it  would  hardly  do  for  him 
to  bear  the  responsibility  of  advising  French 
citizens  to  abandon  their  native  country.  He 
was  therefore  anxious  that  an  office  should  be 
106 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

opened  in  Paris  where  maps  could  be  seen  and 
titles  lodged,  adding :  "  Purchasers  here  are 
for  the  most  part  ignorant  of  geography.  So 
far  from  thinking  the  forests  a  disadvantage, 
they  are  captivated  with  the  idea  of  having 
their  chateaux  surrounded  by  magnificent  trees. 
They  naturally  expect  superb  highways  over 
the  pathless  deserts,  and  see  with  the  mind's 
eye  numerous  barges  in  every  stream."  His 
journey  in  1794  to  Quebec  and  Northern  New 
York  only  increased  his  faith  in  the  great 
future  of  the  then  "  West,"  and  he  described 
his  lands  there  as  the  finest  he  ever  saw.  In 
1808  he  wrote  to  Mme.  de  Stael:  "I  shall 
expect  to  see  you  with  your  son  next  spring. 
I  know  your  friend  Le  Ray  keeps  you  well  in 
formed  about  your  affairs.  If  your  landed 
property  were  all  lying  together  it  would  be 
more  valuable,  because  it  could  be  managed 
with  more  ease  and  less  expense."  Indeed  at 
thirty-five,  Mme.  de  Stael  was  seriously  consid 
ering  Morris'  urgent  recommendation  to  go  to 
the  United  States  as  a  safe  refuge  from  the 
troubles  in  Europe.  Alike  in  Paris  and  in 

Germany,  Morris  encouraged  his  friends  of  all 
107 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

ranks  to  save  their  money  by  putting  it  into 
American  land,  and  no  doubt  Le  Ray  de  Chau- 
mont  and  others  who  planned  French  colonies 
in  the  United  States  did  so  with  his  help. 

The  elder  Le  Ray  de  Chaumont  was  owner 
of  a  luxurious  home  at  Passy,  where  in  one  of 
its  dependencies,  the  Hotel  Valentinois,  Frank 
lin  found  a  quiet  retreat.  Le  Ray  was 
Grand  Master  of  the  Waters  and  Forests  of 
France  and  Honorary  Intendant  of  the  In- 
valides.  He  was  rich  and  occupied  the  chateau 
of  Chaumont  on  the  Loire,  as  well  as  the  house 
at  Passy.  He  was  the  close  friend  of  the  Due 
de  Choiseul,  his  neighbor  at  Chaumont,  and 
had  declined  his  invitation  to  enter  the  min 
istry,  as  he  preferred  to  act  as  an  intermediary 
between  the  [American]  Commissioners  and 
Versailles.1 

J.  Donatien  Le  Ray  de  Chaumont  was  the 
son  of  Franklin's  host  at  Passy.  The  father 
had  advanced  large  sums  to  the  struggling 
colonies,  and  the  son  came  over  to  settle  his 
father's  accounts.  At  the  suggestion  of 
Gouverneur  Morris  he  bought  large  tracts  of 

1  Smyth:  Life  of  Franklin,  p.  306. 
108 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

land  in  Northern  New  York,  and  at  one  time 
owned  thirty  thousand  acres  in  Franklin 
County;  seventy -three  thousand  acres  in  St. 
Lawrence  County ;  one  hundred  and  forty -three 
thousand  five  hundred  acres  in  Jefferson 
County;  one  hundred  thousand  acres  in  Lewis 
County.  In  1815,  through  Duponceau  as 
agent,  he  conveyed  one  hundred  and  fifty  thou 
sand  acres  to  Joseph  Bonaparte.  The  actual 
sale,  it  is  said,  was  made  in  France,  as  Joseph 
was  flying  from  the  allies,  and  he  paid  down 
in  gold  and  precious  stones  from  the  store  he 
was  carrying  off.  Joseph  was  supposed  to 
intend  to  make  a  refuge  for  Napoleon,  if  he 
should  escape  to  the  United  States.  It  was 
intended  to  found  large  manufacturing  estab 
lishments  on  the  Black  River,  to  injure  the 
English  industries.  The  details  were  discussed 
with  a  son  of  Murat,  when  he  was  visiting 
Le  Ray  in  his  new  home.  Le  Ray  built  a  large 
house  at  Le  Rayville,  ten  miles  east  of  Water- 
town,  and  there  he  entertained  many  notable 
French  visitors.  Joseph  Bonaparte  came  in 
1815,  and  in  1828  built  a  hunting-lodge, 

where   he   spent   several   summers.     Tradition 
109 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

reported  in  county  histories  (see  Sylvester's 
"Northern  New  York,"  Troy,  1877,  and 
Hough's  "  Jefferson  County,"  Albany,  1854) 
that  dressed  in  a  green  hunting-suit  he  drove 
in  a  coach  and  six  over  roads  he  had  cut 
through  the  forests,  and  that  on  the  Black 
River  he  had  a  six-oared  gondola.  In  1835 
he  sold  his  land  to  John  La  Farge,  of  New 
York.  Le  Ray  began  settlements  in  1801  and 
in  1803  laid  out  the  village  still  called  Chau- 
mont.  An  earlier  effort  to  establish  a  French 
colony  in  the  wilds  of  New  York  was  made  by 
French  agents  of  William  Constable,  the 
partner  of  Macomb,  the  owner  of  over  three 
and  a  half  million  acres.  Their  company  was 
to  set  apart  two  thousand  acres  for  a  city,  two 
thousand  acres  for  a  town  on  Lake  Ontario, 
six  thousand  acres  for  artisans,  twenty  thou 
sand  acres  for  roads,  bridges,  etc.  Le  Ray's 
purchases  included  part  of  this  vast  estate, 
and  his  plans  are  described  in  the  Appendix 
to  St.  John  de  Crevecoeur's  "  Travels  in  Penn 
sylvania  "  (French  ed.,  Paris,  1801).  Le  Ray 
sold  tracts  to  many  noted  Frenchmen,  among 
them  Caulaincourt,  Real,  Grouchy,  and  De 

110 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

Furneaux,  and  it  is  said  that  among  the  pur 
chasers  were  Mme.  de  Stae'l;  but  at  all  events 
Le  Ray  spent  years  in  promoting  settlements 
on  his  lands.  His  last  visit  to  them  was  made 
in  1836,  and  he  died  in  Paris  in  1840. 

Donatien  Le  Ray  de  Chaumont  married  a 
Miss  Coxe  of  New  Jersey.  Their  son,  Vincent 
Le  Ray  de  Chaumont,  published  in  Paris,  in 
1833,  a  pamphlet,  "  Renseignemens  sur  la 
Partie  des  Etats  Unis  la  plus  favorable  aux 
Agriculteurs  venant  d'Europe,"  in  which  he 
advises  intending  French  emigrants.  He  "  rec 
ommends  them  to  buy  and  settle  on  his  tract 
of  three  hundred  thousand  acres  in  Jefferson 
County,  New  York,  or  in  the  neighborhood, 
for  the  State  of  New  York  sold  its  lands  much 
lower  than  the  United  States  in  order  to  in 
crease  its  population  and  its  representation  and 
influence  in  Congress.  It  is  near  sawmills, 
flourmills,  etc.,  and  farm  products  bring  much 
better  prices  than  on  the  Ohio  or  anywhere 
in  the  West.  The  country  is  favorable  for  vine 
yards  and  silk  culture.  The  father  and  the  son 
are  ready  to  answer  any  inquiries  made  of  them 

at  their  house  in  Paris."     An  extract  from  an 
111 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

address  by  Major  Curry  before  the  Jefferson 
County  Agricultural  Society,  gives  an  account 
of  the  success  of  the  vines  and  mulberry  trees 
sent  by  Le  Ray.  A  circular  signed  by  thirty 
or  more  residents  of  Rosiere,  the  name  of  the 
first  settlement,  commends  it  and  the  adjoining 
lands  of  M.  Le  Ray  de  Chaumont.  The  signers 
give  their  French  homes,  Haute  Saone,  Vitrey, 
Arbecey,  Combeaufontaine,  etc.,  and  their 
statement  as  to  the  advantages  of  their  new 
home  is  attested  by  the  curate,  by  the  bishop  of 
New  York,  who  had  himself  visited  the  new 
colony,  and  by  the  French  consul  general. 

In  Smyth's  Franklin,  vol.  ix,  p.  636,  etc., 
Franklin  writes  to  Le  Veillard,  of  the  visit  of 
Messrs.  Picque  and  Saugrain,  the  latter  a 
brother-in-law  of  Dr.  Guillotin,  who  had  re 
solved  to  remove  to  America,  and  these  two 
went  ahead  to  investigate  the  country.  Frank 
lin  wrote  to  Guillotin  from  Philadelphia  on 
May  4,  1788,  of  bad  news  of  an  accident  to 
them  on  their  way  down  the  Ohio,  and  again 
on  October  S3,  1788,  confirming  the  loss  of 
"  poor  M.  Pique  "  in  a  wilderness  country,  and 

Guillotin  never  came. 

112 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

The  following  books  on  French  colonies  in 
the  United  States  are  of  interest :  "  Le 
Nouveau  Mississippi  ou  les  Dangers  d'habiter 
les  Bords  du  Scioto  par  un  patriote  Voy- 
ageur  "  [Sergeant  Major  Roux],  Paris,  1790, 
was  written  to  disabuse  the  unhappy  victims 
of  the  Scioto  speculators.  There  was  estab 
lished  in  Paris,  rue  Neuve  des  Petits  Champs, 
No.  162,  a  company  under  the  name  of  Scioto. 
Roux,  secretary  of  the  government  of  Com- 
piegne,  who  travelled  in  1784*  through  the 
country  of  the  Scioto  and  the  Ohio,  said 
"  he  could  have  bought  for  twenty-five  louis, 
three  or  four  leagues  on  the  shores  of  the  Ohio, 
with  Congress  paper  money  at  ninety  per  cent., 
but  it  would  have  been  a  total  loss.  He  warns 
others  that  they  will  lose  their  money  and  be 
worse  than  slaves.  He  cites  a  memoir  deposited 
in  the  Bureau  of  the  Navy  in  1784.  He  warns 
his  countrymen  against  the  enterprise  of  the 
Scioto  Company.  The  soil  has  little  depth, 
crops  diminish  yearly,  trees  have  shallow  roots, 
in  three  years  the  land  must  be  abandoned. 
The  American  works  but  two  or  three  days  a 
week,  that  he  may  drink  or  idle  the  others; 
8  113 


THF 

UNIVER 

or 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

the  labor  is  done  by  '  redemptionists,'  men 
who  pay  for  their  passage  by  hiring  them 
selves  out.  All  men  of  talent  in  America  are 
traders.  Manufactures  can  never  compete 
with  the  superior  products  of  Europe.  The 
Scioto  Society  boast  of  the  soil,  but  say  noth 
ing  of  the  dangers  of  climate,  want  of  good 
water,  of  the  savages,  which  will  destroy  any 
French  settlement." 

"  Lettres  ecrites  des  rives  de  I'Ohio,  par 
Claude  Fra^ois  Adrien  de  Lezay  [Marquis 
de]  Marnezia,  citoyen  de  Pensylvanie.  Au 
Fort  Pitt  et  a  Paris,  an  IX  de  la  Republique." 
Querard  says  this  pamphlet  was  seized  by 
the  police  and  is  very  rare.  First  letter 
from  "  Marieta,"  [sic]  November  15,  1790: 
"  Living  in  the  finest  house  here,  surrounded  by 
generals,  majors,  colonels,  chevaliers  of  the 
Order  of  the  Cincinnati, — that  is,  lodged  in  a 
wretched  hut,  with  titled  neighbors  who  drive 
their  own  teams,  cultivate  and  very  badly  their 
fields,  wear  poor  clothes,  entertaining  some 
visiting  Indians,  who  prefer  Frenchmen  to 
Americans,  since  the  latter  can  never  culti 
vate  the  arts."  Second  letter,  Fort  Pitt,  No- 
114 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

vember  2,  1791  [to  Bernardin  de  St.  Pierre]  : 
"  I  came  to  America  to  find  a  safe  and  peaceful 
retreat  from  the  turmoil  of  France,  to  take 
possession  of  a  tract  of  land  on  the  banks  of 
the  Ohio,  but  I  found  the  promises  of  the 
prospectus  of  the  Scioto  Company  false  in 
every  respect,  except  as  to  the  good  soil.  That 
Company  has  utterly  failed  in  its  plans.  Leav 
ing  New  York  for  my  land  on  the  Scioto  and 
Ohio,  I  stopped  first  at  Bethlehem,  Pennsyl 
vania,  with  the  Moravians.  [Here  follows  a 
glowing  account  of  their  schools,  etc.]  The 
best  site  for  a  French  colony  would  be  at  the 
head  of  the  Ohio,  between  the  Aleghain  and 
the  Monongahela.  Let  fifty  families,  part 
nobles,  part  good  citizens,  come  with  their  ser 
vants  and  farm-hands,  mechanics, — in  all  from 
one  thousand  to  twelve  hundred  persons ;  with 
money  enough  to  buy  lands  for  themselves  and 
for  those  who,  approved  by  a  two-thirds  vote, 
may  join  them,  the  latter  paying,  of  course, 
a  proportion  of  the  expenses  already  incurred. 
Fifteen  hundred  acres  will  suffice  for  a  farm 
that  will  maintain  in  comfort  each  family. 

There  will  be  no  difficulty  in  buying  land ;  the 
115 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

Americans  are  lazy  and  bored,  often  moving 
from  place  to  place  for  the  sake  of  change; 
in  the  thirty  years  that  the  Pennsylvania 
neighborhood  suggested  has  been  settled,  it 
has  changed  owners  two  or  three  times.  The 
sight  of  money  will  tempt  any  American  to 
sell,  and  off  he  goes  to  new  country,  leaving 
the  newcomer  all  his  improvements. 

"  The  Ohio,  Monongahela,  and  Allegheny 
rivers  are  full  of  fine  fish,  the  forests  of  game — 
wild  turkies,  deer,  pigeons,  pheasants,  etc. 
Vegetables  grow  to  a  size  unknown  in  Europe ; 
in  four  or  five  months,  the  splendid  forests 
will  be  converted  into  smiling  farms,  each  pro 
ducing  food  enough  for  thirty  persons,  besides 
that  for  the  cattle  in  the  winter.  These 
families,  unlike  the  Americans,  will  spend  the 
winter  in  earnest  studies  and  innocent  amuse 
ments.  In  the  centre  of  the  village  build  a  great 
temple,  with  houses  for  the  clergy  on  either 
side;  at  opposite  points  a  palace  of  justice, 
and  a  meeting  place;  beyond  a  college  and  a 
school  for  girls.  In  the  middle  of  this  square, 
put  a  fountain  at  the  foot  of  a  column  instruct 
ing  posterity  as  to  the  motives  of  the  emi- 
116 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

grants  settled  here.  Erect  a  hospital  cared  for 
by  Sisters  of  St.  Vincent  de  Paul;  workshops 
where  local  material  can  be  manufactured  for 
the  use  of  the  people,  the  fifty  families  of  the 
settlement,  governed  by  twelve  administrators, 
one-fourth  reflected  annually;  the  newcomers, 
all  French,  will  produce  hats  and  linen  and 
cloth  and  other  useful  articles,  and  as  each 
year  will  bring  new  hands,  new  industries  will 
be  introduced.  Their  products  will  find  ready 
markets  in  Kentucky  and  in  the  South  and 
the  Antilles.  The  profits  can  be  used  to  buy 
land  as  an  endowment  for  schools,  churches, 
etc.  New  colonies  will  rise  in  other  quar 
ters,  where  new  industries  will  follow — glass- 
making,  potteries,  watchmaking,  papermak- 
ing,  iron  works,  all  supplied  with  ex 
perts  from  France.  All  these  colonies  will 
unite  in  building  a  central  city,  to  be  called  St. 
Peter's,  where  illustrious  Frenchmen  will  be 
immortalized,  by  streets,  fountains,  squares, 
etc.,  named  Fenelon,  Buffon,  Paschal,  Catinat, 
Rousseau,  Racine,  Corneille,  La  Fontaine, 
Massillon,  Vincent  de  Paul,  Sully,  Necker, 

Montesquieu,    Tollendal,    Mounier,    Clermont- 
117 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

Tonnerre.  Have  a  bishop  and  twelve  clergy 
men,  five  magistrates,  twelve  heads  of  business, 
a  college  with  professors  of  medicine,  mathe 
matics,  botany,  chemistry,  teachers  of  music 
and  drawing;  the  town  reserved  for  the 
proprietors,  tradesmen  and  mechanics  will  live 
in  the  suburbs;  many  of  the  clergymen  will 
also  be  teachers ;  the  bishop  will  be  elected  by 
heads  of  families,  and  he  will  be  the  head  of 
a  future  university,  so  that  the  State  of  Penn 
sylvania  and  the  United  States  will  benefit 
by  the  example  and  instruction  of  this  French 
colony."  The  author  suggests  some  improve 
ments  in  the  American  government ;  "  let  it 
divide  the  country  into  eight  monarchies,  or 
into  a  number  of  small  republics,  or  into  a 
Southern  Monarchy  and  a  Northern  Republic, 
thus  securing  justice  and  moderation  which 
would  be  lost  in  a  single  great  Republic." 

In  a  letter  dated  Philadelphia,  December  15, 
1791,  he  describes  his  plantation  on  the  Monon- 
gahela,  and  near  it  the  home  of  another 
Frenchman,  Montpelier,  whose  owners  have 
had  a  romantic  history  that  fills  many  pages. 
On  the  advice  of  Francklin  [sic]  the  hero  of 
118 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

the  story  and  his  sweetheart  sailed  for  America, 
were  married  at  the  Catholic  Church  in  Phila 
delphia,  went  to  Fort  Pitt,  made  near  it  their 
future  home;  then  after  five  years  (with  a 
fortune  inherited  in  France)  built  a  new  house 
filled  with  every  luxury;  not  far  off  was  the 
home  of  another  French  family,  that  of  M.  de 
Lassus,  with  every  attraction,  thus  offering  to 
Americans  the  best  examples  of  good  taste, 
and  to  other  French  exiles  the  advantage  of 
other  countrymen  near  by.  One  such,  M.  Au- 
drain,  has  for  five  or  six  years  lived  at  Fort 
Pitt,  and  helped  his  countrymen  ruined  by  the 
Scioto  Company's  failure. 

The  letters  of  Lezay  Marnezia  are  interest 
ing  as  a  typical  example  of  the  dreams  of 
exiled  Frenchmen,  for  a  home  in  America,  as 
a  refuge  from  the  storms  in  France.  Im 
practicable  as  his  schemes  seem  to-day,  still 
they  no  doubt  attracted  the  notice  of  some 
of  those  Frenchmen  who  did  come  to  the  United 
States  and  made  a  valuable  addition  to  its 
population. 

Lezay  Marnezia  [Claude  Fra^ois  Adrien, 
Marquis  de],  born  in  Metz,  France,  August 
119 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

24,  1735,  died  in  Besanson,  November  9,  1800, 
was  captain  in  the  King's  Regiment,  retired 
to  his  estate,  abolished  "  corvees  et  mainmorte  " 
there,  advocated  in  the  assembly  equal  taxation 
and  suppression  of  feudal  privileges;  joined 
the  left,  and  left  France  in  1790,  taking 
workingmen,  farmers,  and  artists,  to  found  a 
colony  in  Pennsylvania ;  spent  a  year  in  try 
ing  to  do  so,  and  after  its  failure  returned  by 
way  of  England  to  France;  then  went  to 
Switzerland  and  to  France  finally.  Among 
many  writings,  he  published  a  letter  to  M. 
Adriani,  merchant,  Pittsburg,  describing  his 
stay  in  Pennsylvania  [Paris,  1797]  ;  he  pub 
lished  in  Paris,  1792,  his  "  Voyage."  His  son 
wrote  a  book,  "  Considerations  sur  les  Etats  de 
Massachusetts  et  Penns^lvanie,"  Paris,  1795. 
Another  son  who  had  accompanied  the  father 
to  Pennsylvania,  became  a  French  Senator  in 
1852  and  died  in  that  year. 


XI 

FRENCH  PLAN  OF  EDUCATION  IN  THE 
UNITED  STATES 

DUPONT  DE  NEMOURS  helped,  under  Ver- 
gennes,  in  the  recognition  of  the  United  States 
by  France,  became  secretary  of  the  assembly 
of  notables,  and  a  member  of  the  Etats 
generaux,  as  representative  from  Nemours,  in 
1795,  one  of  the  Conseil  des  Anciens,  an  exile 
to  the  United  States  in  1797,  remaining  there 
until  1802;  he  left  France  again  in  1815, 
joining  his  sons,  who  had  established  themselves 
in  business  in  Delaware,  and  died  there  in  1817. 
He  published  in  Paris  in  1812  a  work  on 
National  Education  in  the  United  States.1  It 
was,  he  says,  in  his  Preface,  written  in  1800  at 
the  request  of  Mr.  Jefferson,  then  Vice-Presi- 
dent  of  the  United  States.  He  says :  "  The 
United  States  are  more  advanced  in  educa- 


1  Dupont  de   Nemours:    "Sur  1'Education   Nationale 
dans  les  Etats  Unis  d'Am£rique,"  2e  edition,  Paris,  1812. 
121 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

tion  than  most  other  countries.  There  are 
many  schools  for  children,  almost  every  one 
learns  to  read,  write  and  reckon.  Only  four 
per  thousand  do  not,  while  in  Spain,  Portugal, 
and  Italy,  hardly  one-sixth  can  do  so;  in  Ger 
many  and  France  more  than  one-third,  in 
Poland,  only  two  per  cent.,  and  in  Russia  not 
1  per  cent.  England,  Holland,  and  the  Protes 
tant  cantons  of  Switzerland  come  next  to  the 
United  States.  He  urges  Congress  to  offer 
prizes  for  the  best  books  for  education.  Their 
sale  will  bring  in  an  income  of  $50,000,  while 
$10,000  will  pay  for  the  books  and  the  prizes. 
He  advises  the  establishment  of  colleges  in 
every  county,  or  in  less  populous  neighbor 
hoods  for  every  group  of  two  or  more.  Free 
scholarships  should  be  given  according  to  the 
votes  of  the  students,  to  be  held  for  seven  years. 
Six  professors  can  teach  in  each  college,  seven 
classes,  ten  courses,  twenty  sciences,  and  forty 
methods  of  studying  them  will  provide  a  pro 
gramme.  Each  class  will  vote  for  the  prizes 
to  be  awarded  to  its  members,  and  at  the  end 
of  seven  years  the  winners  will  be  made  free 
students  at  the  University.  He  gives  tables 
122 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

of  the  distribution  of  hours  and  studies,  and  a 
schedule  of  salaries : 

One  president  at  $500  a  year ;  six  professors 
at  $300,  $1,800;  two  supervisors,  at  $200, 
$400;  one  cook  at  $200;  three  servants  at 
$150,  $450;  prizes,  repairs,  etc.,  $150;  total 
$3,500 ;  for  ten  colleges,  $35,000. 

One  hundred  and  forty  free  scholarships, 
fourteen  for  each  college,  at  $150,  $56,000; 
special  schools,  $10,500 ;  fifty  free  students  in 
schools,  $10,000;  cost  of  a  college  in  Virginia, 
$76,500. 

Students'  annual  fees,  $150;  students  other 
than  free  scholars,  $125 ;  students  for  open 
courses,  $100. 

The  special  schools  will  be  those  of  The 
ology,  Law,  Medicine,  Arts,  which  with  the 
colleges  and  the  primary  and  secondary  schools 
will  constitute  the  University  of  North 
America. 

The  course  in  the  Medical  School  should 
cover  five  years,  the  Law  School  three  years, 
the  School  of  Social  Science  three  years,  the 
School  of  Mathematics  three  years.  Each 


123 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

State  and  the  United  States  should  each  have  a 
Council  of  Instruction,  to  be  in  close  touch 
with  the  Legislatures  and  Executive. 

This  paper  is  dated  New  York,   15  June, 
1800. 


XII 

FRENCH   COLONIES   IN  THE  UNITED  STATES: 
GALLIPOLIS,  OHIO;  ASYLUM,  PENNSYLVANIA 

THE  story  of  the  French  colony  at  Galli- 
polis  is  told  by  McMaster  in  the  second  volume, 
pp.  146,  etc.,  of  his  History  of  the  United 
States.  "  It  is  no  wonder  that  the  sad  experi 
ence  of  the  French  emigrants  attracted  to  that 
place  by  the  Scioto  Land  Company  and  its 
agent  in  France,  Barlow,  and  its  manager  in 
New  York,  Duer,  long  deterred  any  similar 
attempts.  Barlow  went  to  Paris  just  after 
the  opening  of  the  French  Revolution,  and 
began  to  sell  title  deeds  to  estates  in  the  West 
at  five  shillings  the  acre.  Tempted  by  his 
exaggerated  descriptions  of  the  land,  the  soil, 
and  the  climate,  no  taxes,  no  military  service, 
no  soldiers  to  live  on  the  people,  no  wolves, 
or  foxes,  no  bears  or  tigers,  the  land  on  the 
shores  of  the  Ohio,  called  the  Beautiful,  in  its 
waters  enormous  fish,  on  its  banks  majestic 
125 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

trees,  out  of  whose  sides  ran  sugar,  and  bushes 
with  berries  yielding  wax, — with  such  a  picture 
before  them,  numbers  of  Frenchmen  made  haste 
to  sell  what  little  stores  of  worldly  goods  they 
had  and  buy  lands  in  America.  Before  the 
close  of  1791  five  hundred  emigrants  from 
Havre,  Bordeaux,  Nantes,  and  Rochelle,  were 
on  the  sea.  Some  could  build  coaches,  some 
make  perukes,  some  carve,  others  gild.  The 
first  shipload  started  with  words  of  encourage 
ment  from  Barlow,  under  the  charge  of  a  man 
named  Boulogne,  who  was  bidden  to  inform 
the  gentlemen  proprietors  of  lands  on  the 
Scioto,  that  each  was  to  receive  a  house  lot 
and  a  right  to  the  commons  in  the  city  they 
were  about  to  found.  They  were  to  be  the 
fathers  and  founders  of  a  nation.  In  May, 
1790,  after  a  voyage  of  seventy-two  days,  the 
first  shipload  brought  to  Alexandria,  Virginia, 
two  hundred  of  the  newcomers,  and  one  hun 
dred  and  twenty  arrived  a  little  later.  After 
the  hardships  of  their  long  voyages,  came  the 
discovery  that  the  agent  in  charge  was  a  knave. 
Some  had  lost  clothing,  some  baggage,  which 

they  asked  in  vain  that  the  Scioto  Company 
126 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

should  reimburse  them.  A  few  took  refuge 
with  the  French  Minister  and  were  sent  home. 
The  rest,  after  endless  hardships,  reached  the 
promised  land,  only  to  find  that  the  sellers  had 
no  title  to  the  land.  At  the  end  of  a  year 
food  gave  out  and  they  were  forced  to  beg  or 
buy  it  from  the  emigrants  that  went  by  on  the 
river.  In  the  spring  of  1792  the  Indians 
carried  off  one  of  their  number.  Filled  with 
alarm,  some  went  to  Detroit,  some  to  Kaskaskia, 
and  of  the  few  that  remained,  travellers  gave 
a  sad  description.  In  1795  Congress  gave 
them  twenty-four  thousand  acres  of  land  oppo 
site  the  mouth  of  the  Little  Sandy  River,  and 
three  years  later  twelve  hundred  more,  known 
as  the  French  Grant."  The  site  of  the  Scioto 
Company  was  within  the  territory  which 
Franklin  nearly  forty  years  before  had  pointed 
out  for  colonization. 

As  early  as  1754,  soon  after  the  Albany 
Convention  of  that  year,  Franklin  wrote  a 
paper  "  For  Settling  two  Western  Colonies  in 
North  America  "  (printed  in  Smyth's  Frank 
lin,  vol.  iii,  p.  358,  etc.),  in  which  he  argued 
that  this  would  prevent  "  the  dreaded  junction 
127 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

of  the  French  settlements  in  Canada  with  those 
in  Louisiana,"  and  suggested  that  "  two  char 
ters  be  granted,  each  for  some  considerable  part 
of  the  lands  west  of  Pennsylvania  and  the  Vir 
ginian  mountains,  to  a  number  of  the  nobility 
and  gentry  of  Britain,  with  such  Americans  as 
shall  join  them  in  contributing  to  the  settle- 
ment  of  these  lands,  either  by  paying  a  pro 
portion  of  the  expense  of  making  such  settle 
ments,  or  by  actually  going  thither  in  person 
and  settling  themselves  and  families.  That  by 
such  charters  it  be  granted  that  every  actual 

settler  be  entitled  to  a  tract  of acres  for 

himself,  and  acres  for  every  poll  in  the 

family  he  carries  with  him;   and  that  every 

contribution  of  guineas  be  entitled  to  a 

quantity  of  land  equal  to  the  share  of  a  single 
settler,"  etc.  A  small  fort  on  the  Buffalo 
Creek  on  the  Ohio,  and  another  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Tioga,  on  the  south  side  of  Lake  Erie, 
where  a  post  should  be  formed,  and  a  town 
erected,  for  the  trade  of  the  lakes,  would  suffice. 
The  river  Scioto,  which  runs  into  the  Ohio, 
is  supposed  the  fittest  seat  for  the  other  colony, 
there  being  for  forty  miles  on  each  side  of  it 
128 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

a  body  of  all  rich  land,  the  finest  spot  in  its 
bigness  in  all  North  America,  and  has  the 
particular  advantage  of  sea  coal  in  plenty 
(even  above  ground  in  two  places),  for  fuel, 
when  the  woods  shall  be  destroyed.  Again,  in 
1772  (Smyth's  Franklin,  vol.  v,  p.  479,  etc.) 
Franklin  urged  the  confirmation  of  Walpole's 
grant  for  a  settlement  on  the  Ohio  River.  He 
said  that  the  lands  in  question  are  excellent, 
the  climate  temperate;  native  grapes,  silk 
worms,  and  mulberry-trees  are  everywhere; 
hemp  grows  spontaneously  in  the  valleys  and 
low  lands;  iron  ore  is  plenty  in  the  hills,  and 
no  soil  is  better  adapted  for  the  culture  of 
tobacco,  flax,  and  cotton. 

In  "  Travels  in  America,"  by  Thomas  Twin 
ing  [reprinted,  New  York,  1894],  the  young 
Englishman  speaks  of  meeting  at  Mr.  Bing- 
ham's  in  Philadelphia,  in  1795,  Count  de 
Noailles  and  Count  Tilley,  and  the  celebrated 
Mons.  Volney,  of  whom  he  says :  "  He  told 
me  he  should  probably  publish  some  account 
of  America.  He  examined  things  very  mi 
nutely.  I  cannot  say  I  was  much  pleased  with 
Mons.  Volney.  He  was  cold  and  satirical.  I 
9  129 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

concluded  that  the  political  troubles  in  which 
he  had  been  engaged,  and  the  persecution 
which  had  banished  him  from  his  country,  had 
caused  this  splenetic  unsociableness  or  increased 
a  constitutional  irritability.  He  was  little 
pleased  with  America,  and  where  he  was  not 
pleased  he  expressed  himself  with  much 
severity.  As  a  philosopher  he  might  be  ex 
pected  to  see  with  less  surprise  and  dissatisfac 
tion  the  imperfections  of  a  new  State,  so  remote 
from  the  improvements  and  influence  of 
Europe ;  and  as  the  guest  of  America  he  might 
be  expected  to  repay  her  hospitality  with  more 
urbanity  and  indulgence.  It  appeared  to  me 
that  Monsieur  Volney  was  disappointed  be 
cause  he  had  unreasonably  expected  too  much, 
and  unjust  in  blaming  a  society  that  could 
hardly  be  other  than  it  was."  Twining  also 
mentions  seeing  "  a  tall  gentleman  in  a  blue 
coat,  pointed  out  as  M.  Talleyrand,"  walking 
on  Chestnut  Street,  in  Philadelphia. 


Volney   says   that   the   land   of   the    Scioto 

Company  offered  in  Paris  at  six  livres  an  acre 
130 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

was  really  worth  six  or  seven  sous  an  acre,  but 
partly  misled  by  Brissot's  book,  partly  by  the 
growing  disorders  in  France,  in  1791  quite 
a  number  of  purchasers  sailed  from  Havre, 
Bordeaux,  Nantes,  and  Rochelle,  for  their  new 
home.  In  1795  Volney  could  get  no  particu 
lars  of  the  colony  at  Gallipolis,  and  made  the 
journey  thither  to  see  it.  He  heard  the  story 
from  the  settlers  and  saw  the  poor  results  of 
their  efforts  to  make  a  living — only  fifty  were 
left.  He  visited  Vincennes  on  the  Wabash, 
where  a  colony  of  French  "  Canadians  "  had 
settled  before  the  American  Revolution. 
"  After  being  by  turns  French  and  Spanish  and 
American  subjects,  the  government,  in  1792,  in 
compensation  for  their  losses,  gave  them  four 
hundred  acres  for  each  taxpayer,  and  one  hun 
dred  more  for  every  man  who  could  bear  arms ; 
but  hunters  rather  than  farmers,  they  sold 
their  lands  to  Americans  for  one-tenth  of  their 
value  and  took  payment  in  goods  at  far  more 
than  their  real  value.  Reduced  to  poverty,  the 
old  settlers  complain,  but  in  vain,  of  laws  they 
do  not  understand,  and  judges  who  do  not 
understand  them.  The  Americans  charge  them 
131 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

with  indolence  and  ignorance;  there  were  no 
schools  until  the  French  Revolution  sent  them 
a  missionary, — yet  of  ninety  French  settlers, 
hardly  six  could  read  or  write,  while  of 
every  hundred  Americans,  ninety  can  do  so. 
Largely  sprung  from  French  soldiers  sent  to 
Canada,  they  still  long  for  a  military  govern 
ment.  The  same  conditions  exist  with  the 
French  settlers  in  Illinois,  Kaskaskia,  Caho- 
kias,  Prairie  du  Rocher,  St.  Louis;  within  five 
or  six  years  the  Americans  have  become  owners 
of  all  the  good  land.  Only  a  hundred  and 
fifty  French  families  were  reported  by  Sargent, 
secretary  of  the  Northwest  Territory,  in  1790. 
The  same  conditions  existed  at  Fort  Detroit, 
most  of  the  French  going  across  the  boundary 
into  King  George's  Canada,  just  as  those 
further  southwest  to  New  Orleans  and  other 
parts  of  Louisiana."  Volney  regrets  that  the 
French  colony  of  Gallipolis  had  not  gone  to 
one  of  the  old  French  settlements  and  strength 
ened  it. 

Volney  saw  Gallipolis  in   1796,  and  in  his 
"  View  of  the  Climate  and  Soil  of  the  United 
States  "  says  he  was  struck  with  the  wild  ap- 
132 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

pearance  and  the  sallow  complexions,  thin 
visages  and  sickly  looks  and  uneasy  air  of  its 
inhabitants.  One  of  the  settlers  at  Gallipolis 
was  Jean  Jules  Le  Moyne  de  Villers,  a  native 
of  Paris.  He  settled  in  Washington,  Penn 
sylvania,  about  1797,  became  a  leading  physi 
cian,  and  was  a  generous  benefactor  of  local 
education.  His  descendants  are  active  and 
useful  citizens. 

There  was  a  settlement  made  by  the  French 
under  the  old  claim  on  the  site  of  the  present 
city  of  Erie,  Pennsylvania,  where  they  built  a 
rude  log  fort  called  "  Presq'Isle,"  the  first  one 
of  the  chain  of  forts  built  by  the  French  from 
the  St.  Lawrence  to  the  Ohio.  Not  a  trace  was 
left  forty  years  after  its  capture  by  the 
British,  in  the  old  French  War. 

The  Centennial  of  Gallipolis,  celebrated 
October  16-19,  1890,  by  the  Ohio  State 
Archeological  and  Historical  Society,  is  fully 
described  in  its  volume  (Columbus,  Ohio, 
1895),  with  illustrations  —  the  city  of  1890, 
views  of  the  cabins  built  1791,  its  pub 
lic  square  in  1790  and  in  1846,  a  map  of 

1791,  and  maps  of  the  purchases  of  the  Ohio 
133 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

and  Scioto  Companies  and  that  issued  by  the 
latter  in  Paris  to  be  shown  to  intending  settlers. 
An  exposition  of  relics  brought  together  quite 
a  goodly  array  of  articles  of  furniture,  etc., 
brought  out  by  the  original  settlers  and  still 
cherished  by  their  descendants  and  their 
owners. 

Mr.  John  L.  Vance  read  a  paper  on  "  The 
French  Settlement  and  Settlers  of  Gallipolis  " 
(pp.  45—81);  he  quotes  at  length  a  letter  of 
M.  Meutelle,  one  of  the  original  settlers, 
printed  in  the  American  Pioneer,  Cincinnati, 
April,  1843,  and  an  earlier  letter  from  Mr. 
Le  Turc,  a  Gallipolis  merchant,  dated  July  6, 
1792,  with  a  gloomy  view  of  the  prospect.  It 
was  largely  through  Duponceau's  help  that 
Congress  made  "  the  French  Grant "  of 
twenty-four  thousand  acres  opposite  the  Little 
Sandy,  for  the  people  of  Gallipolis.  He  gives 
a  sketch  "  map  of  the  four-acre  lots  drawn  by 
the  inhabitants  of  Gallipolis  January  £0, 
1791,"  with  a  numeral  list  of  the  town  lots, 
with  their  original  disposition,  making  in  all 
two  hundred  and  thirty-four,  and  all  names  are 

French.     There  is  also  a  paper  of  December 
134 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

14,  1795,  giving  the  plan  of  distribution  of 
the  town-  and  out-lots.  Reference  is  made  to 
the  account  given  by  John  Heckewelder  of  his 
visit  in  1792,  in  company  with  General  Putnam, 
when  they  found  skilled  workmen,  goldsmiths 
and  watchmakers,  stonecutters  and  sculptors, 
whose  productions  were  sold  as  far  as  New 
Orleans,  a  glassworker  making  thermometers 
and  barometers,  and  chemists  making  nitric 
acid,  phosphorus,  etc.  There  is  also  a  long 
extract  from  H.  M.  Brackenridge's  Recol 
lections.  He  stopped  at  Gallipolis  previous 
to  1795,  with  Dr.  Saugrain,  chemist,  nat 
ural  philosopher,  and  physician,  a  royalist 
like  most  of  the  settlers,  making  a  bold 
struggle  against  great  difficulties.  A  school 
started  twenty  years  later,  was  called  Gallia 
Academy,  and  Gallia  County  perpetuates  the 
nationality  of  the  French  settlers  of  Gallipolis. 
In  1824  Lafayette  visited  it,  as  Louis  Philippe 
and  his  brothers  did  at  a  much  earlier  date,  on 
their  way  to  New  Orleans.  To-day  it  is  a 
prosperous  town,  but  with  few  descendants  of 
the  original  French  settlers.  A  translation  is 

given    of    Manasseh    Cutler's    "  Description," 
135 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

etc.,  for  Barlow's  use  in  floating  the  Scioto 
Company  in  France,  published  in  Paris 
in  1789,  from  the  original  English  ver 
sion  issued  in  Salem,  Massachusetts,  in  1787. 
The  copy  used  bears  on  its  title-page  the  name 
of  one  of  the  French  settlers,  dated  1805.  An 
account  is  given  (p.  123)  of  the  Society  of 
the  Scioto,  organized  in  Paris  by  Barlow,  in 
1789,  to  which  he  sold  three  million  acres,  at 
$1.14  per  acre.  A  land  office  was  opened 
in  Paris,  and  maps  with  glowing  descriptions 
of  the  lands  on  the  Ohio  and  the  Scioto  were 
issued.  Gallipolis  was  laid  out,  and  one  of 
the  original  deeds  is  still  preserved  there.  Full 
details  are  given  of  the  transfer  to  the  Ohio 
Company,  and  of  the  complicated  difficulties 
that  led  to  the  failure  of  these  great  land 
schemes,  of  Duponceau's  efforts  to  secure  from 
Congress  relief  for  his  defrauded  countrymen, 
and  abstracts  of  the  laws  passed  for  the 
purpose. 

Volney,     after    an     imprisonment     of     ten 

months    in    France,    sailed    in    1795    for    the 

United    States,    remaining   there    until    1798, 

when    the    "  epidemic    animosity    against    the 

136 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

French  "  compelled  him  to  leave  the  country. 
In  the  English  edition  of  his  "  View,  etc.,  of 
the  United  States,"  (London,  1804,  pp.  355, 
etc.),  he  gives  an  account  of  Gallipolis,  or  the 
French  colony  on  the  Ohio.  He  attributes 
much  of  the  success  of  the  Scioto  Company's 
scheme  in  Paris  to  Brissot's  account  in  his 
Travels  in  the  United  States.  The  emigra 
tion  began  in  1791,  through  Havre,  Bordeaux, 
Nantes,  and  Rochelle. 

Volney  on  his  arrival  in  Philadelphia,  in 
1795,  inquired  in  vain  after  the  colony,  so  in 
the  following  summer  he  travelled  from  Phila 
delphia  through  Virginia,  in  an  open  boat 
down  the  Great  Kanhaway  [sic]  into  the  Ohio, 
and  at  last  reached  the  village  of  Gallipolis. 
There  he  found  two  rows  of  little  white  houses, 
built  on  the  flat  summit  of  the  bank  of  the 
Ohio.  He  found  the  place  wild  and  unkempt, 
the  people  thin,  sickly,  and  uneasy.  The 
houses  were  nothing  but  huts  made  of  trunks 
of  trees,  plastered  with  clay  and  covered  with 
shingles,  whitewashed,  but  damp  and  badly 
sheltered  from  the  weather.  About  five  hun 
dred  settlers,  all  of  them  mechanics,  artists,  or 
137 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

tradesmen  in  easy  circumstances,  had  come  in 
1791  and  1792,  to  New  York,  Philadelphia, 
and  Baltimore.  Each  had  paid  twenty  or 
twenty-four  guineas  for  passage,  and  their 
journey  by  land  in  France  and  America  had 
cost  as  much  more.  After  an  Indian  assault, 
the  greater  number  abandoned  the  place,  some 
removing  to  Louisiana.  Then  after  more 
litigation,  the  remaining  settlers  obtained  a 
tract  of  nine  hundred  and  twelve  acres  from 
the  Ohio  Company.  In  1795  Congress  granted 
twenty  thousand  acres  to  the  poor  pillaged 
Frenchmen,  and  Volney  found  them  trying  to 
secure  a  livelihood  on  their  new  home.  Later 
he  visited  the  French  colonies  on  the  Mississippi 
and  Lake  Erie.  At  St.  Vincent  the  French 
settlers  had  been  established  for  sixty  years, 
and  there  as  with  those  at  Kaskaskia,  Caho- 
kia,  Rocky  Meadows,  and  St.  Louis,  discour 
agement,  apathy,  and  wretchedness  prevailed. 
Andre  Michaux's  "  Travels  into  Kentucky, 
1793-96,"  and  Fra^ois  Andre  Michaux's 
"  Travels  to  the  West  of  the  Allegheny  Moun 
tains  in  the  States  of  Ohio,  Kentucky,  and 
Tennessee,"  1802,  have  been  reprinted  by 
138 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

Thwaites  in  vol.   iii  of  his  "  Early  Western 
Travels,"  Cleveland,  Ohio,  1904. 

The  son  presented  to  the  American  Philo 
sophical  Society  the  father's  field  notes,  and 
these  were  printed  by  the  American  Philosoph 
ical  Society  in  1889.  Although  Michaux's 
comment  on  the  French  settled  in  the  West  is 
unfavorable,  yet  he  records  the  number  of 
Frenchmen  who  became  prominent  and  useful 
citizens  of  the  West — Lucas  at  Pittsburg, 
Lacassagne  at  Louisville,  Tardiveau,  Hourie, 
and  Depauw  at  Danville.  Father  and  son  both 
visited  Gallipolis ;  the  former  speaks  of  it  as 
"  that  unfortunate  colony ;  of  the  six  hundred 
persons  who  came  there  to  settle,  only  one 
hundred  and  fifty  remained  in  1793."  In 
1802  the  son  visited  Gallipolis  and  found  that 
only  thirty  families  had  gone  to  the  lands 
granted  by  Congress,  while  most  of  the 
original  log  houses  were  in  ruins,  the  former 
owners  having  gone  elsewhere,  some  to  New 
Orleans,  others  to  Pittsburg  and  points  in 
Western  Pennsylvania.  Thwaites  says  that 
in  1893  Gallipolis  had  grown  into  a  flourishing 
town,  through  the  energy  of  the  American  and 
139 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

German   settlers,   and   but   three   families   de 
scendants  of  the  French  colonists  lived  there. 

THE    FRENCH    COLONY   OF   ASYLUM   IN    PENN 
SYLVANIA 

Rochefoucauld,  in  vol.  i,  p.  151,  of  his 
Travels  in  the  United  States,  gives  an  account 
of  his  visit  to  the  colony  of  "  Azyl "  in  Penn 
sylvania.  It  is  perhaps  the  earliest  descrip 
tion  of  an  attempt  to  colonize  French  royalist 
exiles,  made  under  auspices  that  at  the  outset 
promised  success.  Rochefoucauld  gives  the 
names  of  the  principal  settlers — De  Blacons, 
a  deputy  in  the  Constituent  Assembly  from 
Dauphine,  and  his  wife,  Mdlle.  de  Maulde; 
they  were  keeping  a  store,  in  partnership  with 
M.  Colin,  formerly  the  Abbe  de  Sevigne ;  M.  de 
Montule,  captain  of  cavalry;  his  cousin,  Mme. 
de  Sybert,  of  St.  Domingo ;  De  Bee  de  Lievre, 
in  partnership  with  the  Messieurs  de  la  Roue, 
officers  of  the  French  army;  M.  Beaulieu, 
captain  of  infantry  in  France,  served  in  the 
Pulaski  Legion  in  the  American  War  of  Inde 
pendence,  keeping  a  tavern;  M.  Bayard, 

planter  from  St.  Domingo,  now  with  wife  and 
140 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

children  and  some  negroes  who  came  with 
them;  M.  de  Noailles,  of  St.  Domingo;  M. 
d'Audelot,  of  Franche-Comte,  formerly  an 
officer  in  the  French  army,  then  a  farmer;  Du- 
petit  Thouars,  officer  of  the  French  navy,  now 
farming;  his  companion  in  his  adventurous 
escape  from  Brazil,  M.  Nores;  Mr.  Keating 
(the  founder  of  a  well-known  family  in  Phila 
delphia),  M.  Renaud,  an  exile  from  St. 
Domingo;  M.  Carlier,  Canon  of  Quercy;  M. 
Prevost,  of  Paris,  well  known  for  his  active 
charitable  work  there,  now  a  farmer  on  his  little 
property  on  the  North  Branch  of  the  Susque- 
hanna ;  Mme.  d'Autrepont,  with  her  sons,  work 
ing  for  daily  bread,  like  all  the  members  of  the 
colony. 

One  fault  of  the  French  settlers  was  their 
unwillingness  to  learn  the  language  or  conform 
to  the  customs  of  their  neighbors,  the  old 
American  settlers.  The  other,  said  Roche 
foucauld,  is  the  need  of  more  and  better  work 
ing-people,  to  make  the  somewhat  unfavor 
able  site  at  least  as  prosperous  as  the  other 
farm  settlements.  The  Duke's  hopes  for  the 
French  colony  at  Asylum  were  not  realized, 
141 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

and  its  failure  is  described  by  later  travellers 
and  in  the  account  given  by  a  resident  of  to 
day. 

Rochefoucauld  mentions  all  the  Frenchmen 
he  met  on  his  long  journey,  mostly  individual 
settlers,  trying,  as  in  South  Carolina,  to  intro 
duce  home  industries,  but  few  of  them  suc 
ceeded  or  left  any  lasting  trace  of  their 
residence.  Mrs.  Murray  in  her  account  of 
Asylum  says  that  the  thirty  houses  built  for 
the  settlers  had  chimneys,  doors,  staircases, 
window-glass,  shutters,  and  piazzas  and  sum 
mer-houses,  all  unknown  luxuries  to  the  few 
neighboring  old  residents.  Some  quaint  little 
shops  were  on  the  public  square  with  a  small 
chapel  and  a  theatre,  as  well  as  a  bakery,  all 
evidence  of  French  needs. 

Asylum,  near  Wilkes-Barre,  Pennsylvania, 
was  planned  by  the  Vicomte  Louis  de  Noailles, 
a  brother-in-law  of  Lafayette,  and  the 
Marquis  Omer  Talon ;  it  was  a  land  com 
pany  owning  a  large  tract  on  the  North 
Branch  of  the  Susquehanna.  Established  in 
1794,  on  land  sold  to  the  Company  by  Morris 
and  Nicholson,  it  secured  a  tract  of  two  thou- 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

sand  acres,  and  a  M.  Boulogne  was  the  active 
manager  until  he  was  drowned  in  1796  in  Sulli 
van  County  and  buried  at  Asylum.  The  first 
settlers  came  in  1793,  among  them  Dupetit 
Thouars,  later  killed  in  command  of  a  man-of- 
war  at  the  battle  of  the  Nile.  Noailles  was  em 
ployed  by  Robert  Morris,  but  soon  left  to  take 
part  in  the  French  attack  on  Havana,  and  died 
of  the  wounds  received  in  action.  A  Catholic 
church  was  built,  and  a  large  house  put  up,  it 
was  said  for  the  King  and  Queen  of  France, 
when  they  should  make  their  escape  from  cap 
tivity  and  seek  safety  in  shelter  among  their 
loyal  friends  at  Asylum. 

Rochefoucauld  in  his  Travels  describes  it 
as  he  saw  it  on  his  visit  in  1795.  A  year 
later  an  English  traveller,  Weld,  visited  it  and 
tells  what  he  saw  in  his  Travels.  Wilson,  the 
ornithologist,  was  there  in  1804  and  refers  to 
it  in  his  poem  describing  his  pedestrian  tour  to 
Niagara.  Louis  Philippe  and  his  brother 
came  there  too  from  Philadelphia.  John 
Keating,  an  exile  from  St.  Domingo,  was  one 
of  the  settlers  for  a  time  and  remained  the 
agent  of  the  Company  in  Philadelphia  and 
143 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

wound  up  its  business.  He  was  the  first  of  a 
family  well  known  in  Philadelphia  and  still 
affiliated  with  France.  Some  of  the  colonists 
returned  to  France  and  became  men  of  note; 
others  went  to  New  Orleans,  and  in  ten 
years  the  colony  was  at  an  end.  The  Honor 
able  John  Laporte,  M.C.,  was  the  son  of  one 
of  the  colonists.  Mr.  J.  W.  Ingham  described 
it  in  the  New  England  Magazine,  N.  S.,  vol. 
xxxi,  pp.  81,  etc.,  1904-05.  "Exiled  from 
France  and  from  St.  Domingo,  thousands  of 
Frenchmen  sought  shelter  in  the  United 
States." 

"  The  Story  of  Some  French  Refugees  and 
their  Colony  of  Azilum,"  1793-1800,  by 
Louise  Welles  Montgomery,  Athens,  Pennsyl 
vania,  1903,  is  the  local  version  of  their  trials. 
The  original  plot  of  their  settlement  is  in  the 
Bradford  County  Historical  Society.  Omer 
Talon  came  to  Philadelphia  in  1792,  and  took 
the  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  State  of  Pennsyl 
vania.  He  joined  in  Philadelphia  the  Vicomte 
de  Noailles,  who  was  in  business  with  William 
Bingham,  and  had  bought  land  from  Robert 
Morris.  Their  agent  selected  eight  lots  of 
144 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

three  hundred  acres  each  in  Luzerne  County 
on  the  North  Branch  of  the  Susquehanna,  for 
a  French  colony.  They  also  bought  one  hun 
dred  thousand  acres  of  wild  land,  on  the  Loyal- 
sock  ;  in  1794  they  organized  a  land  company 
on  the  basis  of  a  capital  stock  of  a  million 
acres,  in  five  thousand  shares  of  two  hundred 
acres  each.  In  1801  the  Company  was  reor 
ganized,  and  later  on  the  land  was  sold  by 
trustees.  Talon  and  Dupetit  Thouars  and 
Boulogne  were  active  managers.  Some  of  the 
roads  built  by  Omer  Talon  are  still  in  use, 
and  one  is  to-day  known  as  "  The  Old  French 
Road."  A  weekly  express  to  Philadelphia  was 
maintained  for  several  years.  The  Due  de 
Rochefoucauld  describes  the  place  as  he  saw  it 
in  1795 — a  settlement  in  the  wilds  made  for 
French  people  of  position  at  home. 

The  deeds  conveying  property  mentioned 
some  of  the  advantages  of  the  properties.  Mrs. 
Murray  prints  an  agreement  by  which  Sophia 
de  Sibert  sold  Nos.  416  and  417  of  the  Asylum 
Company's  property  to  Gui  de  Noailles,  and 
describes  the  house  as  having  fireplaces,  the 

garden  a  number  of  fruit  trees,  young  Lom- 
10  145 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

bardy  poplars  and  weeping  willows,  and  a 
lattice  summer  house,  and  a  nursery  of  nine 
hundred  apple  trees,  with  a  gristmill  and  a 
barn  that  might  be  altered  into  a  dwelling- 
house. 

Among  the  relics  brought  from  France  there 
was  a  beautiful  illuminated  missal,  used  in  the 
religious  services  in  the  log  chapel,  later  given 
to  a  priest  in  Tonawanda,  by  whom  it  was 
taken  to  Rome  and  presented  to  the  Vatican 
Museum.  Even  those  of  the  settlers  who  re 
turned  to  France  gave  accounts  of  the  Susque- 
hanna  Valley  which  later  attracted  settlers 
whose  descendants  still  live  in  Bradford 
County,  Pennsylvania,  notably  the  Piollets  and 
the  Delpeuchs. 

The  fate  of  the  originators  of  "Azylum  " 
was  very  sad.  Noailles  died  of  his  wounds  in 
a  successful  naval  engagement  off  Havana; 
Dupetit  Thouars  fell  in  the  Battle  of  the  Nile, 
and  Omer  Talon  returned  to  France  and  died 
in  an  insane  asylum ;  De  Blacons  too  returned, 
became  a  member  of  the  National  Assembly, 
and  died  by  his  own  hand;  Fromentin,  once 

priest,  became  a  judge  in  Florida;  Beaulieu 
146 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

left  descendants  now  known  as  Boileau,  scat 
tered  through  Pennsylvania. 

In  1801  John  Brevost  advertised  in  the 
Wilkes-Barre  Gazette  that  he  would  open  at 
Asylum  a  school  for  teaching  the  French  lan 
guage,  "  which  within  a  hundred  years  has 
become  the  common  tongue  of  Europe;  is 
spoken  by  two  large  regions  of  the  continent, 
and  which  the  reward  of  a  sincere  friendship 
between  the  American  and  French  nations  will 
render  necessary  to  young  gentlemen  who  in 
tend  to  follow  the  political  or  mercantile  life ;  " 
his  price  was  sixty  bushels  of  wheat  a  year, 
but  he  soon  moved  to  New  Orleans. 

The  list  of  taxables  at  Asylum  for  the  year 
1796  (the  earliest  known)  has  a  goodly  array 
of  French  names,  but  it  is  pathetic  to  follow 
the  decrease  in  successive  years,  showing  the 
scattering  of  the  settlers.  "  The  French  at 
Asylum  "  are  the  sub j  ects  of  a  paper  by  the 
Reverend  David  Craft,  printed  by  the  Wyom 
ing  Historical  Society,  in  vol.  viii  of  its  Pro 
ceedings,  in  1902,  following  an  earlier  paper 
by  him  of  1898,  in  vol.  v,  for  1900.  It  de 
scribes  actual  visits  and  the  results  of  a  careful 
147 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

inspection  of  the  traces  of  the  settlement  of 
1795. 

Of  the  "  great "  house,  where  Omer  Talon 
lived  in  generous  hospitality,  entertaining 
travelling  Frenchmen,  and  caring  for  his 
neighbors,  not  a  trace  is  left,  while  the  gardens 
and  orchards  have  all  disappeared,  and  all 
that  they  were  is  told  in  Alexander  Wilson's 
verse : 

"  Gaul's  exiled  royalists,  a  pensive  train, 
Here  raise  the  hut  and  clear  the  rough  domain," 

while  of  their  leaders,  there  are  remembered 
only  Noailles  and  Dupetit  Thouars,  and  that 
for  their  heroic  death  in  the  service  of  their 
country. 

In  Alexander  Gray  don's  Memoirs  (Harris- 
burg,  1811 )  he  says :  "  A  letter  about  the  year 
1790  or  1791  introduced  to  me  Mr.  Talon,  then 
engaged  with  the  Viscomte  de  Noailles  in  estab 
lishing  a  settlement  on  the  North  Branch  of 
the  Susquehanna,  and  to  which  they  gave  the 
name  of  Assylum  [sec].  He  several  times 
passed  through  Harrisburg.  Mr.  Talon  fully 

justified  to  my  conception  the  favorable  idea 

148 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

of  a  Frenchman  of  rank.  I  have  seldom  seen 
a  gentleman  with  whose  manners  I  was  more 
pleased.  Though  he  spoke  but  little  English, 
and  I  less  French,  yet  from  the  knowledge  we 
had  of  each  other's  language,  we  contrived  to 
make  ourselves  mutually  understood.  On  one 
of  his  visits  to  Harrisburg  he  was  attended 
by  not  less  than  ten  or  a  dozen  gentlemen,  all 
adventurers  in  the  new  establishment,  from 
which  they  had  just  returned  on  their  way  to 
Philadelphia.  Of  these  I  only  recollect  the 
names  of  M.  de  Blacons,  Captain  Keating,  and 
Captain  Boileau.  Captain  Keating  was  an 
Irishman,  and  Captain  Boileau  had  been  among 
the  troops  which  had  served  in  this  country. 
M.  Blacons  expatiated  on  a  projected  road 
from  Assylum  to  Philadelphia,  which  required 
nothing  but  the  consent  of  the  Legislature,  to 
be  completed  out  of  hand.  Talon  had  been 
adverse  to  the  Revolution  in  France  in  all  its 
stages  and  modifications.  He  was  the  person 
on  account  of  whose  courteous  reception  Gen 
eral  Washington  had  been  roundly  taken  to 
task  by  the  Citizen  Genet.  The  Duke  de  la 
Rochefoucauld  gives  some  particulars  of  the 
149 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

Assylum  settlement,  humorously  called  by  some 
of  the  settlers,  refugium  peccatorum,  and 
enumerates  the  families  which  had  established 
themselves  there.  The  settlement  is  now  en 
tirely  abandoned  by  the  French;  a  tract  more 
rugged  and  mountainous  could  hardly  be 
found.  It  agrees  with  Mr.  Talon's  account 
of  it :  '  A  narrow  strip  of  flat  land  along  the 
river.'  Talon  was  Avocat  General  under  the 
old  regime,  of  the  family  of  the  one  spoken  of 
by  Cardinal  de  Retz." 


XIII 

FRENCH  SETTLEMENT  IN  IOWA 

THERE  has  been  little  written  about  the 
French  settlements  in  Iowa,  chiefly  because  the 
French  pioneers  made  few  settlements  in  Iowa 
that  continued  and  because  the  immigration 
since  has  been  slight.  Of  French  communities 
existing  to-day  there  are  but  four  in  the  State. 
Near  Waterloo,  south  and  east,  there  is  a  com 
munity  that  was  known  as  "  Frenchtown  "  in 
common  parlance,  but  in  the  Postal  Guide  it 
goes  under  the  name  of  Gilbertville.  There  is 
a  French  community  near  Woodstock,  a  rural 
agricultural  folk.  Not  far  from  Sioux  City  is 
a  little  town  of  Salix,  made  up  almost  wholly 
of  French,  many  of  them  descendants  of 
Canadian  voyageurs  who  returned  from  fruit 
less  expeditions  up  the  Missouri  River  in  the  fur- 
trading  days  and  became  the  pioneers  of  Wood- 
bury  County  and  the  first  settlers  of  Sioux  City. 

In  the  northern  part  of  Washington  County, 
151 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

Iowa,  in  the  southeastern  portion  of  the  State, 
there  is  another  French  community.  It  is  some 
what  interfused  with  other  peoples  at  present. 
Another  French  community  is  the  religious 
brotherhood  at  the  monastery  of  Melleray,  not 
far  from  Dubuque,  in  northeastern  Iowa.  Of 
the  early  settlements,  Dubuque  contained  the 
greatest  number  and  they  constitute  to-day  a 
noticeable  element  in  that  city.  Girard  (now 
McGregor)  opposite  Prairie  du  Chien  in  Wis 
consin,  Bellevue  in  Jackson  County,  and  Mont- 
rose  in  Lee  County,  and  St.  Mary's,  Pottawat- 
tamie  County,  are  defunct  French  settlements. 
Davenport  and  Keokuk  contain  some  descend 
ants  and  originals  of  the  pioneer  French  stock 
that  first  invaded  Iowa.  Not  a  few  of  the 
Icarians  or  their  descendants  are  found  in 
Keokuk  to-day.  The  architect  of  Iowa's 
capitol  was  an  Icarian,  S.  Picquenard.1 

The  Socialist  colony  of  Icaria  in  Iowa  is 
described  by  Nordhoff  in  his  "  Communistic 
Societies  of  the  United  States,"  New  York, 
1875,  pp.  334,  etc.,  and  in  an  article  in  the 

1  Letter  from  Prof.  F.  I.  Herriott,  Drake  University, 
Dubuque,  Iowa. 

152 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

London  Quarterly  Review  of  June,  1848,  pp. 
16,  etc.,  and  by  Hillquist  in  his  "  History  of 
Socialism  in  the  United  States."  He  says  the 
founder,  Cabet,  was  born  in  Dijon  in  1788, 
was  a  member  of  the  French  Assembly  in  1834. 
He  bought  a  million  acres  in  Texas,  arrived 
in  New  Orleans  in  1848,  with  four  hundred 
followers,  and  by  1849  had  five  hundred.  The 
Texas  scheme  failed,  and  he  next  moved  to 
Nauvoo,  Illinois,  lately  abandoned  by  the  Mor 
mons  ;  in  1856  Cabet  was  expelled,  and  he  died 
soon  after  in  St.  Louis,  near  which  some  hun 
dred  of  his  adherents  settled,  but  that  colony 
broke  up  in  1859.  The  others  had  gone  to  Iowa 
and  established  a  colony  which  broke  up  in 
1887,  part  of  it  going  to  California,  while 
the  old  Icaria  ended  in  1895.  The  California 
colony  lasted  only  a  few  years,  but  was  fol 
lowed  by  many  French  settlers,  to  whom  is 
largely  due  the  successful  culture  of  vineyards, 
olive  and  fig  and  peach  and  other  small  fruits, 
which  contribute  greatly  to  the  prosperity  of 
the  State. 

"  Soon  after  the  last  remnant  of  Mormon 

population    disappeared    from    Nauvoo    there 
153 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

appeared  on  that  historic  spot  the  advance 
agents  of  a  new  colony  seeking  opportunity 
to  exploit  other  peculiar  theories  of  social  life 
in  this  far  western  country.1  Nauvoo  was  an 
ideal  site  for  such  an  experiment,  and  the 
agents  hastily  returned  to  New  Orleans  with  a 
favorable  report  and  an  option  on  the  land 
for  the  waiting  colonists.  These  were  the 
Icarians,  a  considerable  body  of  communists, 
organized  in  France  by  Etienne  Cabet  of 
Dijon.  The  foundation  of  his  dream  of  abso 
lute  equality,  as  typified  in  a  democratic  re 
public  to  be  called  Icaria,  was  laid  in  1830, 
and  by  1847  four  hundred  thousand  names 
were  reported  as  signed  to  the  Social  Compact. 
A  year  later,  having  obtained  a  large  tract  of 
land  in  Texas,  an  advance  guard  of  sixty-nine 
sailed  from  France  to  take  formal  possession; 
others  followed,  but  from  various  causes,  more 
particularly  the  nature  of  the  country  and  the 
prevalence  of  malarial  fever,  this  first  coloniza 
tion  was  an  utter  failure,  so  that  when,  in 
1849,  Cabet  reached  New  Orleans  and  took 

1  Settlement    of    the    Icarians    at    Nauvoo,    p.    347, 
Parrish's  Historic  Illinois. 

154 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

personal  command  of  the  entire  force,  then 
numbering  five  hundred,  including  many 
women  and  children,  agents  were  despatched  up 
the  Mississippi  seeking  a  more  suitable  location 
for  permanent  settlement. 

"  In  March,  1849,  the  remnant  of  the  colony, 
still  firm  in  belief  of  their  dream,  began  their 
journey  up  the  river.  It  proved  a  fearful 
one.  Cholera  broke  out  and  many  died. 
Twenty  miles  below  Nauvoo,  ice  blocked 
further  passage  northward  by  steamer,  and 
they  were  compelled  to  tramp  the  remainder  of 
the  way  knee  deep  in  snow  and  slush,  carrying 
children  and  sick  as  best  they  could.  At 
Nauvoo  they  found  some  comfort  in  the  houses 
still  standing  as  the  banished  Mormons  had 
left  them,  yet  much  suffering  remained.  The 
climate  was  severe,  water  unwholesome,  food 
costly,  indeed  nearly  impossible  to  obtain  at 
any  price.  For  months  they  subsisted  entirely 
upon  beans.  But  in  the  midst  of  all  this  hard 
ship,  the  spirit  of  the  Icarians  remained  un 
broken.  Slowly  they  built  their  little  common 
wealth,  a  mere  child's  toy  compared  to  the 

stately  city  of  their  enthusiastic  leader's  plans, 
155 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

yet  ruled  by  the  same  laws,  controlled  by  the 
same  ideals,  which  had  made  them  exiles.  Six 
directors,  elected  annually,  controlled  the  ad 
ministration  ;  the  laws  were  made  by  a  general 
assembly,  including  all  men  over  twenty. 
Cabet  was  elected  president  year  after  year, 
yet  exercised  little  authority,  as  the  title  was 
merely  one  of  honor.  The  colony  was  purely 
communistic,  the  members  putting  their  pos 
sessions,  even  books  and  heirlooms,  into  the 
common  fund.  Furniture,  tools,  and  cooking 
utensils  were  equally  divided ;  tasks  and  hours 
of  labor  were  evenly  proportioned.  Homes 
were  separate,  each  family  occupying  its  own 
house,  but  the  colony  school  reared  the  children 
in  common;  all  ate  at  one  table;  individualism 
was  treated  as  unworthy. 

"  For  a  while  the  community  flourished  and 
increased;  it  became  fairly  prosperous.  By 
1855  they  had  with  great  industry  and  self- 
denial  erected  mills  and  workshops,  their  farms 
were  well  tilled,  their  school  ranked  among  the 
best  in  the  State.  A  well-selected  library  of 
over  six  thousand  volumes  had  been  established, 

and  a  well-organized  trained  orchestra  was  the 
156 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

marvel  of  the  neighbors.  A  weekly  magazine 
was  published  in  three  languages,  with  a  wide 
circulation  in  the  United  States  and  Europe. 
New  members  were  constantly  arriving,  among 
them  men  and  women  of  culture,  accomplished 
musicians,  painters  of  reputation,  a  famous 
civil  engineer,  a  physician  of  standing  in 
Vienna,  an  authority  on  bee  culture,  Picque- 
nard,  afterwards  architect  of  the  capitols 
in  Iowa  and  Illinois;  Vallet,  a  sociologist, 
Gauvain,  officer,  teacher,  nobleman.  Cabet 
himself  was  the  cause  of  failure.  Late  in  1855, 
tired  of  being  president  only  in  name,  he  tried 
to  have  the  constitution  revised  so  as  to  give 
him  almost  dictatorial  powers ;  but  this  led  to 
a  bitter  contest.  Cabet  was  deposed  at  the 
election,  but  was  restored  on  his  appeal  to  the 
voters. 

"  Later  he  commanded  his  old  officials  not  to 
vacate  their  positions  to  those  newly  elected. 
This  led  to  a  strike  by  Cabet's  loyal  followers, 
who  refused  to  work  when  the  new  directors 
were  put  in  by  force  by  the  majority.  After 
a  bitter  struggle  the  majority  burned  Cabet's 

'  Icaria,'  until  then  their  creed,  a  legal  divi- 
157 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

sion  of  the  community  property  was  decided 
upon,  and  Cabet  by  vote  expelled.  One  hun 
dred  and  eighty  disciples  accompanied  him  into 
exile,  while  eight  hundred  remained.  A  week 
later  he  died  suddenly  of  apoplexy  in  St. 
Louis.  His  followers  located  six  miles  below 
that  city,  prospered  for  a  while,  then  broke  up. 
The  majority  drifted  away  from  Nauvoo  to 
a  tract  of  land  in  Iowa.  There  by  1875  they 
reached  the  height  of  their  prosperity,  after 
much  struggle,  and  then  a  second  division 
separated  the  younger  from  the  older  members, 
the  former  drifting  to  California,  the  latter 
clinging  to  Icaria,  until  by  1895  the  last 
vestige  of  their  community  had  perished,  al 
most  without  a  ripple,  from  mere  exhaustion. 
The  California  colony  lasted  a  little  longer, 
but  that  too  finally  ended  from  want  of  the 
old  enthusiasm  and  of  new  recruits." 


XIV 

BONAPARTIST    EXILES 

AMONG  French  exiles  to  America  who  be 
came  prominent  on  their  return  to  France, 
were  Marshal  Grouchy,  Lefebvre  Desnouettes, 
Clausel,  later  governor  general  of  Algiers  and 
marshal,  Lackanal,  later  minister  of  educa 
tion  under  Napoleon.  In  1817  Parmentier 
obtained  a  grant  of  land  in  Alabama  for 
French  refugees,  who  left  Philadelphia  and 
settled  at  St.  Stephen's,  on  the  Tombigbee;  at 
the  suggestion  of  Comte  Real  it  was  called 
Demopolis.  German  Redemptioners  were  hired 
to  work  the  land,  but  it  was  finally  abandoned 
after  vain  efforts  to  introduce  the  culture  of 
vines,  olives,  etc.,  leaving  debts  and  quarrels 
with  neighbors.  Of  the  settlers  Clouis,  once 
secretary  of  the  Due  de  Rovigo,  died  in  Mobile 
in  1845,  and  Chaudron  in  1846.  Chaudron 
had  lived  in  Philadelphia,  delivered  an  oration 

on  Washington  before  the  Masonic  Order,  and 
159 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

was  a  frequent  contributor  to  French  journals. 
"  The  Napoleonic  Exiles  in  America ;  a 
Study  in  American  Diplomatic  History,  1815- 
1819,"  by  Jesse  S.  Reeves,  Ph.D.  Baltimore. 
Johns  Hopkins  Press,  September-October, 
1905,  is  No.  9-10  of  Series  23  of  Johns  Hop 
kins  University  Studies  in  History  and  Polit 
ical  Science.  It  opens  with  an  account 
of  the  unfortunate  colonial  enterprise  called 
Champs  d'Asile,  on  the  banks  of  the  Trinity 
River,  in  Texas.  Balzac  in  the  third  part 
of  "  Les  Celibataires "  sketched  the  pur 
poses  and  results  of  the  plan  of  founding  a 
French  colony  of  Napoleon's  old  soldiers,  par 
ticularly  the  remnant  of  the  Old  Guard,  partly 
to  get  them  out  of  Paris  and  France,  to  the 
relief  of  the  newly  restored  Bourbons,  partly 
to  carry  out  Napoleon's  vague  plan  of  seeking 
an  asylum  in  America.  Joseph  Bonaparte  did 
so  for  sixteen  years,  living  in  or  near  Philadel 
phia  from  1816  until  1832.  Of  the  other 
soldiers  of  Napoleon  sent  into  exile,  the  first  to 
land  was  Marshal  Grouchy,  who  reached  Balti 
more  in  January,  1816, — published  in  Phila- 


160 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

delphia,  in  1818,  his  account  of  Waterloo,  and 
in  1820  a  pamphlet  on  Napoleon's  Memoirs. 
Later  came  the  Lallemands,  Lefebvre  Desnou- 
ettes,  Rigaud,  Clausel,  Real,  Galabert,  Schultz, 
Combes,  Jordan,  Latapie,  Vorster,  Douarche, 
Charrasin,  Taillade,  Defourni,  and  others  of 
less  rank.  Lakanal  brought  a  letter  from 
Lafayette  to  Jefferson,  and  first  settled  in 
Gallatin  County,  near  Vevay,  Indiana. 

A  company  was  formed  in  Philadelphia  in 
1816  to  secure  a  grant  of  land  for  settlement 
and  cultivation  of  vine  and  olive.  The  secre 
tary,  Colonel  Parmentier,  secured  the  grant  for 
"  The  French  Agricultural  and  Manufactur 
ing  Society,"  and  the  Tombigbee  Association. 
General  Charles  Lallemand  was  elected  presi 
dent,  and  most  of  the  shareholders  were  the 
French  officers  of  Napoleon's  army,  whose 
names  are  given  above.  The  site  selected  was 
on  the  Tombigbee  River  in  Alabama.  One 
hundred  and  fifty  sailed  from  Philadelphia  in 
1817,  and  later  a  still  larger  number;  all  were 
heartily  welcomed.  "  Demopolis  "  was  sur 
veyed,  but  being  outside  the  grant,  "  Aigle- 

ville "    took   its    place.      "  Marengo,"    as   the 
11  161 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

name  of  the  county,  still  preserves  this  Napo 
leonic  idea. 

The  leading  colonist  was  Lefebvre  Desnou- 
ettes,  with  a  farm  of  five  hundred  acres,  and  a 
log  cabin,  which  he  called  his  sanctuary;  in  it 
(tradition  says)  was  a  large  bronze  statue  of 
Napoleon,  at  its  base  the  swords  and  pistols 
Lefebvre  had  taken  in  battle,  and  on  the  walls 
the  colors  of  the  Emperor.  Peniers  and  Raoul 
and  Clouis  were  his  neighbors.  The  colony  soon 
melted  away,  and  Lallemand  planned  another 
in  Texas.  Meantime  Hyde  de  Neuville,  then 
French  Minister  in  Washington,  was  fright- 
J  ened  by  the  plan  of  a  Napoleonic  invasion  of 
Mexico,  where  Joseph  Bonaparte  was  to  be 
made  Emperor.  It  really  had  little  to  do  with 
the  plans  for  the  Texas  colony,  which  landed 
in  Galveston  in  1818,  welcomed  by  Lafitte, 
and  all,  some  three  or  four  hundred,  soon  left 
for  the  site  of  the  new  colony  on  Trinity  River, 
where  fort  and  blockhouses  were  built,  ground 
was  cleared,  and  a  proclamation  of  its  plan 
issued.  It  was  published  in  Paris,  and  one 
hundred  thousand  francs  were  subscribed  there 
for  the  colony.  Beranger  wrote  a  hymn  in 
163 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

its  honor,  but  the  colony  melted  away  at  the 
threat  of  a  Spanish  invading  force.  It  re 
treated  to  Galveston,  joined  D'Auvray,  a 
Frenchman  who  planned  wresting  Texas  from 
Spain,  but  a  storm  wrecked  the  place,  and 
Lafitte  rescued  them.  The  younger  Lalle- 
mand  returned  to  Philadelphia  and  after 
marrying  a  niece  of  Girard,  went  with  the 
elder  brother  to  Europe ;  Lakanal,  after  a  hard 
experience  in  the  West,  went  to  France  and 
became  a  person  of  much  importance. 

M.  Georges  Bertin  gives  a  very  clear  account 
of  a  leading  French  exile  in  his  "  Joseph 
Bonaparte  in  America,"  1815-1832  (Paris, 
1893).  He  describes  his  estate  at  Borden- 
town,  and  his  large  purchase  of  wild  land  in 
New  York  from  Le  Ray  de  Chaumont,  made 
in  1814  in  France,  when  sales  of  smaller  tracts 
were  made  to  Real,  Caulaincourt,  and  later  in 
1816  to  Grouchy,  Desfourneaux,  and  others. 
Joseph  Bonaparte  had,  before  the  fall  of  the 
Empire,  loaned  two  hundred  thousand  francs 
to  Le  Ray,  and  in  payment  took  the 
lands  on  the  Black  River  which  he  saw 

for  the  first   time   in  1818.      There   he   saw 
163 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

a  cottonmill,  an  iron  forge,  and  a  papermill, 
and  was  delighted  with  the  improvements  made 
in  the  last  four  years.  He  made  more  pur 
chases  of  land  from  Le  Ray,  making  a  total 
investment  of  $120,000,  partly  in  payment  of 
the  original  loan  of  $40,000,  and  partly  in 
diamonds,  carried  from  his  French  home  at 
Morfontaine,  hidden  in  Switzerland,  and  re 
turned  there  to  his  agent  Maillard.  He  built  a 
house,  gave  hunting  parties  on  his  estate  of  one 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  acres,  and  fished 
and  sailed  on  his  lake  of  twelve  hundred  acres, 
filled  with  wooded  islands.  His  daughter 
Charlotte  made  sketches,  of  which  some  were 
lithographed.  The  Legislature  of  New  York 
passed  an  act  enabling  him  to  hold  the  land. 
The  Emperor  in  St.  Helena  approved  of  his 
brother's  plans,  and  said  that  if  he  had  gone 
to  America,  he  would  have  gathered  around 
him  all  his  family,  and  with  the  millions  he 
had  given  them,  in  a  year  he  would  have  had 
sixty  thousand  Frenchmen  with  a  capital  of 
twenty  million  dollars,  and  America  would 
have  been  a  true  asylum  for  those  who  had  fled 
from  the  system  that  had  triumphed  in 
164 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

Europe,  and  from  which  they  would  send 
forth  sound  doctrines.  Joseph  made  homes 
for  some  of  the  French  officers  exiled  to 
the  United  States,  but  in  1829  he  offered 
to  sell  land  that  had  cost  him  five  dollars  an 
acre  in  1814,  for  from  three  to  seven  dollars 
an  acre,  and  said  there  were  a  thousand  settlers 
with  roads,  mills,  villages,  etc.  In  1835  he 
sold  his  land  to  Mr.  John  Laf arge  of  New  York 
for  eighty  thousand  dollars,  a  heavy  loss  on  his 
original  investment.  He  spent  one  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  dollars  on  his  Bordentown 
estate,  and  the  expenses  of  living  there  made 
deep  inroads  on  his  diminishing  fortune,  while 
he  supplied  the  money  to  establish  in  New  York 
the  Courrier  des  Etats  Unis,  in  charge  of  La- 
coste,  formerly  an  officer  in  the  French  army, 
and  an  aid  of  Marshal  Gerard  at  Waterloo. 
Hyde  de  Neuville  on  his  arrival  as  French  Min 
ister  to  the  United  States,  in  1816,  found 
here,  as  he  tells  us  in  his  Memoirs,  many 
Napoleonic  exiles  whose  movements  he  reported 
to  his  government.  In  New  York  were 
Regnault  de  St.  Jean  d'Angely,  Quinet,  and 

Real;     in     Philadelphia,     Grouchy,     Clausel, 
165 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

Garnier  de  Saintes,  and  near  by  Joseph  Bona 
parte  with  his  associates  and  frequent  visitors, 
among  them  Colonel  Behr,  who  was  planning 
for  him  a  kingdom  in  Mexico,  helped  by 
Lakanal.  Napoleon  at  St.  Helena  heard  of 
the  report  and  laughed  at  the  idea.  Lakanal 
was  really  in  earnest  at  work  as  president  of  the 
University  of  Louisiana,  a  post  he  held  until 
his  return  to  France. 

General  Bernard,  according  to  Neuville,  one 
of  the  conspirators,  was  glad  to  find  employ 
ment  as  an  engineer  in  the  service  of  the  United 
States,  and  in  grateful  acknowledgment,  named 
his  son,  born  here  in  1819,  Columbus.  Re 
turned  to  France  after  the  Revolution  of  1830, 
he  died  there  holding  the  office  of  minister  of 
war.  Grouchy  published  in  Philadelphia,  in 
1815,  his  criticism  of  Gourgaud's  account 
of  Waterloo,  and  again,  in  1820,  that  of  the 
authenticity  of  the  Memoirs  attributed  to 
Napoleon.  He  was  one  of  the  owners  of  land 
on  the  Black  River,  New  York,  and  thus  had 
business  dealings  with  Joseph  Bonaparte.  An 
other  of  his  visitors  was  General  Vandamme, 
in  whose  division  Joseph  Bonaparte  had  a  regi- 
166 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

ment.  He,  too,  lived  in  Philadelphia,  until 
with  Arnault  and  Bory  Saint  Vincent,  he  re 
turned  to  France  in  1820.  The  Lallemands 
were  warmly  welcomed  by  Joseph  Bonaparte, 
and  Neuville  said  they  were  leaders  in  the 
Texas  colony  and  in  the  plans  for  a  Napoleonic 
confederation  in  Mexico. 

Lefebvre  Desnouettes  was  shipwrecked  on 
his  voyage  home  and  lost  on  the  Irish  coast. 
Charles  Lallemand,  after  the  failure  of  the 
colony  in  Texas,  opened  a  school  and  thus 
maintained  himself  until  his  return  to  France, 
where  Louis  Philippe  gave  him  an  important 
command.  Charles  J.  Ingersoll  has  recorded 
in  his  "  History  of  the  Second  War  with  Great 
Britain,"  many  details  of  his  personal  acquaint 
ance  with  "  the  Comte  de  Survilliers,"  as  the 
ex-king  of  Spain  chose  to  call  himself.  Two 
of  his  friends,  Lallemand  and  Rigau,  both  old 
soldiers  under  the  great  Napoleon,  had  charge 
of  the  four  hundred  men  who  went  to  the 
French  colony  "  Champs  d'Asile."  Rigau 
died  in  New  Orleans,  leaving  a  daughter  whose 
descendants  include  Mme.  Jules  Ferry,  Colonel 

Charras,      Scheurer     Kestner,     and     Charles 
167 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

Floquet.  A  detailed  account  of  this  French 
colony  in  Texas,  was  published  in  Paris  in 
1820. 

Bertin  cites  from  Ingersoll,  the  following 
names  of  Frenchmen  who  were  visitors  at 
Joseph  Bonaparte's:  Grouchy,  Clausel,  Bern 
ard,  Charles  and  Henry  Lallemand,  Lefebvre 
Desnouettes,  Vandamme,  Combes,  Girardin, 
Latapie,  the  sons  of  Grouchy,  Regnault  de  St. 
Jean  d'Angely,  Real,  Miot  de  Melito,  Lakanal, 
Quinet,  two  sons  of  Fouche,  a  son  of  Marshal 
Ney,  the  son  of  Marshal  Lannes,  a  very  fair 
showing  of  the  French  officers  of  Napoleon, 
from  time  to  time  in  America.  Lafayette  him 
self  on  his  triumphal  tour  of  the  United  States 
in  1824,  was  more  than  once  a  guest  of 
Joseph  Bonaparte.  Many  of  his  visitors  re 
turned  to  France  and  received  offices  from  Loujs 
Philippe,  thus  reducing  his  adherents  in  the 
vain  struggle  to  restore  his  nephew,  the  son 
of  the  great  Napoleon,  to  the  throne.  While 
he  was  supporting  the  French  paper  in  New 
York  he  was  asked  to  help  others  in  France 
and  England,  and  to  get  money  for  this  pur 
pose,  he  tried  to  sell  his  Black  River  property 
168 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

to  Girard,  but  the  death  of  the  latter  turned 
the  sale  in  another  direction.  He  kept 
in  close  touch  with  the  attacks  on  the  govern 
ment  of  Louis  Philippe  and  noted  that  of 
Cabet,  later  founder  of  Icaria,  the  unsuccess 
ful  colony  in  the  West.  In  1832  he  left  the 
United  States,  after  a  stay  of  seventeen  years, 
and  a  farewell  reception  from  the  President  of 
the  United  States,  an  honor  not  accorded  him 
until  he  was  about  to  leave  the  country.  Com 
ing  to  it  an  exile,  he  had  planned  to  bring 
together  many  of  his  fellow  exiles,  but  some  of 
them  returned  to  France  to  take  service  under 
Louis  Philippe,  while  others  returned  to  take  up 
again  the  apparently  hopeless  effort  to  put  a 
Bonaparte  on  the  throne  of  France,  and  a  few 
remained  to  lead  quiet  lives  as  good  American 
citizens. 

"  The  French  Grant  in  Alabama ;  a  History 
of  the  Founding  of  Demopolis,"  by  Gaius 
Whitfield,  Jr.  (From  the  Transactions  of  the 
Alabama  Historical  Society,  Reprint  No.  16.) 
Montgomery,  Ala.,  1904,  refers  to  accounts  in: 

1.  Pickett's   History   of  Alabama,   entitled, 

"  Modern  French  Colony  in  Alabama." 
169 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

2.  Professor  Thomas  Chalmers  McCorvey's 
"  The  Vine  and   Olive   Colony,"   in  Alabama 
Historical  Reporter,  Tuscaloosa,  April,  1885. 

3.  Anne  Bozeman  Lyon's  article  on  "  The 
Bonapartists   in   Alabama,"    in   the   Southern 
Home  Journal,   Memphis,  March,   1900,   and 
reprinted  in  the  Gulf  States  Historical  Maga 
zine,  Montgomery,  March,  1903. 

4.  Articles   in  the   Demopolis  Express,   by 
J.  W.  Beeson. 

It  cites  from  Niles'  Register  (note  p.  324) 
an  estimate  that  not  less  than  thirty  thousand  ^ 
French  emigrants  came  to  the  United  States, 
and  a  correction  that  it  could  not  be  three 
thousand.  An  association  was  organized  in 
Philadelphia  to  establish  a  colony  in  the  West, 
but  its  agents,  Pennier  and  Meslier,  could  not 
find  a  suitable  site.  Meantime  it  sent  Colonel 
Nicholas  Parmentier  to  Washington  to  peti 
tion  Congress  for  a  tract  of  land.  They 
decided,  finally,  to  settle  near  the  confluence  of 
the  Black  Warrior  and  Tombigbee  Rivers,  in 
what  was  then  the  Mississippi  Territory.  It 
was  near  Mobile,  where  there  were  many  sym 
pathizers,  and  not  far  from  Louisiana,  where 
170 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

they  hoped  to  get  help  towards  their  plans  to 
restore  Napoleon  to  his  empire.  Congress 
granted  them  the  tract  by  Act  of  March  3, 
1817,  "  four  contiguous  townships,  each  six 
miles  square  in  the  Mississippi  Territory,  at 
two  dollars  per  acre,  payable  fourteen  years 
after  a  contract  with  agents  of  the  late  emi 
grants  from  France,  associated  for  a  settlement 
in  the  United  States,  with  provisions  for  culti 
vating  vines,  etc.,  no  patent  to  be  issued  until 
payment  had  been  made,  nor  to  any  one  person 
for  more  than  six  acres."  Parmentier  sailed 
from  Philadelphia  and  reported  his  arrival  in 
a  letter  dated  Mobile  Bay,  May  26,  1817,  pub 
lished  in  the  National  Intelligencer  on  the 
following  July  17. 

It  was  decided  to  settle  where  Demopolis 
now  stands,  and  the  name  of  Marengo  was 
given  to  the  county.  The  emigrants  came  by 
way  of  Mobile  and  by  the  Ohio,  chose  lots, 
erected  cabins,  and  at  the  suggestion  of  Count 
Real,  one  of  the  Philadelphia  incorporators 
who  never  came  to  Alabama,  named  it  Dem 
opolis.  The  contract  signed  with  the  Secretary 

of  the  Treasury  conveyed  the  land  for  $184,- 
171 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

320,  to  be  paid  on  or  before  January  8,  1833. 
It  provided  for  clearing  ten  acres  on  each  tract, 
for  planting  five  hundred  olive  trees  within 
seven  years,  and  for  annual  reports  as  to  vine 
and  olive  cultivation,  and  with  it  was  a  list  of 
nearly  four  hundred  persons  to  whom  allot 
ments  were  made,  among  them  the  two  sons  of 
Marshal  Grouchy,  General  Lallemand,  Colonel 
Douarche,  Colonel  Comb,  Colonel  Jordan, 
Colonel  Vorster,  Colonel  Galabert,  Colonel 
Rigau,  Lakanal,  Tulane,  Clouis,  General 
Clausel,  Colonel  Charassin,  Colonel  Raoul, 
Colonel  Taillade,  Bujac,  Salaignac,  Brugiere, 
General  Lefebvre  Desnouettes,  Ducommun, 
Melizet,  and  others  still  known  in  Philadelphia 
and  Mobile.  Their  first  town  site  was  found 
not  within  their  grant,  so  a  second  was  laid 
out  and  called  Aigleville.  The  reports  of  the 
agent  of  the  treasury  were  regularly  printed 
for  Congress  and  described  their  houses,  etc. ; 
but  the  colonists  suffered  great  hardships,  in 
spite  of  frequent  remittances  of  money  and 
supplies  from  France.  Their  vines  and  olives 
were  total  failures  from  the  unsuitable  loca 
tion.  Some  of  the  settlers  went  with  Lalle- 
172 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

mand  to  Texas  to  establish  "  Champs  d'Azile," 
but  that  too  failed.  In  1820  some  of  the  St. 
Domingo  refugees  came  from  Philadelphia  to 
join  the  Demopolis  colony.  In  1822  Congress 
passed  an  act  to  convey  title  to  those  who 
might  pay  for  their  land.  Their  agent, 
Charles  Villars,  said  there  were  three  hundred 
and  twenty-seven  persons  in  the  colony,  eighty- 
one  actual  planters,  with  eleven  hundred  acres 
in  full  cultivation,  and  fifteen  hundred  by 
lease;  ten  thousand  vines  in  full  growth,  and 
more  than  $160,000  spent.  The  Treasury 
Agent  reported,  in  1827,  seven  thousand  four 
hundred  and  fourteen  acres  in  vine,  corn,  cot 
ton,  small  grain,  etc.,  and  in  1828  another 
agent  explained  the  reasons  for  the  failure  of 
the  vines,  and  in  another  report  described  the 
receipt  of  vines  imported  from  France,  losses 
on  the  way,  after  planting,  by  drought,  etc. 
Many  of  the  colonists  returned  to  Europe, 
others  to  Mobile  and  neighboring  cities;  some 
became  men  of  importance  in  France,  and  per 
haps  the  most  distinguished,  Lefebvre  Desnou- 
ettes,  was  lost  at  sea  on  his  way  home.  Colonel 
Raoul  kept  a  ferry  near  Demopolis,  then  went 
173 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

to  Mexico,  returned  to  France  and  became  Gov 
ernor  of  Toulon.  Pennier  was  appointed 
subagent  to  the  Seminoles,  and  died  in  Florida. 
Clouis  kept  a  tavern  in  Greensboro  and  died  in 
Mobile.  Chaudron,  "  the  blind  poet  of  the 
canebrake,"  who  had  edited  a  French  paper  in 
Philadelphia  and  attracted  notice  by  his 
eulogy  of  Washington  before  the  Grand  Lodge 
of  Masons  in  that  city,  died  in  Mobile  in  1846, 
"  leaving  many  interesting  works,  which  were 
published  in  Paris."  Clausel  lived  near  Mobile, 
raising  vegetables,  which  he  sold  in  the  city 
market;  returned  to  France  in  1825,  be 
came  a  marshal  and  was  made  governor  gen 
eral  of  Algiers  by  Louis  Philippe.  Ravesies 
was  a  refugee  from  St.  Domingo,  became  a 
business  man  in  Philadelphia,  was  made  agent 
of  the  Tombigbee  Association  in  1820,  and 
after  living  on  his  grant  moved  to  Mobile, 
where  he  died  in  1854. 

Daudet  in  his  "  Le  Brise-Cailloux,  1815," 
tells  a  story  of  a  plan  to  take  Napoleon  to 
America,  as  follows:  When,  after  Waterloo, 
Napoleon  went  to  the  island  of  Aix,  on  the  eve 
of  his  surrender  to  the  English,  a  ship  captain, 
174 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

Vildieu,  proposed  to  take  him  to  America, 
through  the  English  lines.  Vildieu  was  an 
ardent  Bonapartist,  an  excellent  sailor,  having 
made  a  special  study  of  sailing  small  craft  on 
the  open  ocean, — was  sure  of  his  boat  and  was 
ready  to  take  it  to  the  end  of  the  world.  The 
Emperor  heard  the  whole  of  his  story, 
walked  up  and  down  in  silence,  then  looking  at 
the  ocean  for  some  minutes,  shook  his  head  and 
said  no.  The  plan  did  not  inspire  confidence 
and  he  preferred  surrendering  to  the  English. 
Some  months  later,  Vildieu,  to  show  that  his 
plan  was  a  good  one,  on  the  same  boat  that  he 
had  offered  to  Napoleon,  sailed  to  America  with 
two  men,  one  his  son.  At  the  end  of  six  weeks, 
he  landed  at  Halifax,  much  to  the  surprise  of 
the  crew  of  a  frigate,  near  which  he  anchored. 
Long  years  afterwards,  the  son,  then  an  old 
man,  told  Daudet  the  story.  How  much  truth 
is  there  in  it  ?  At  all  events  it  confirms  the  old 
tradition  that  Napoleon  really  considered  this 
and  other  projects  for  taking  refuge  in  the 
United  States. 


XV 

ROYALIST  EXILES 

HYDE  DE  NEUVILL.E  came  to  the  United 
States  in  1807,  a  royalist  exile,  and  spent  seven 
years  in  this  country.  His  first  thought  was 
to  establish  an  agricultural  settlement,  and 
with  this  in  view  he  travelled  through  the 
country.  In  his  letters  (pp.  450,  etc.,  of  the 
first  volume  of  his  Memoirs,  Paris,  1880)  he 
speaks  of  the  country  as  he  saw  it,  of  the 
boundless  forests,  the  virgin  soil,  the  industry 
of  the  people,  of  his  visits  to  the  Indians  in 
Western  New  York,  of  the  good  work  among 
them  of  the  French  missionaries  during  the  rule 
of  France,  and  their  neglect  later  on;  living 
on  the  allowance  paid  by  the  Holland  Land 
Company,  he  found  them  little  like  the  war 
like  savages  described  by  Chateaubriand.  He 
went  as  far  West  as  Tennessee,  to  visit  the 
colonies  established  by  Church  and  Dupont  de 
Nemours.  He  corresponded  with  his  country- 
176 


THF 

UNIVERSITY   1 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

women,  Mme.  de  Noailles,  Mme.  de  Mouchy, 
Mme.  de  Damas,  Mme.  de  Rochemore,  Mme. 
de  Montechenu,  and  Mme.  de  Pastoret, 
and  the  Princess  de  Tremoille.  To  the 
last  he  wrote  that  if  the  Americans  were 
wise,  they  would  in  time  dictate  laws  to 
both  worlds,  the  Old  and  the  New,  and  equal 
in  power  the  great  nations  of  Europe.  He 
thought  thirty  or  forty  years  would  see  this 
result,  and  if  other  Presidents  had  followed 
the  example  of  Washington,  whom  he  praises 
in  the  strongest  terms,  perhaps  it  would  not 
have  taken  a  century  to  realize  his  aspirations 
for  the  future  of  American  greatness.  He 
formed  many  strong  friendships  with  the 
Crugers,the  Wilkes,the  Churches,  the  Simonds, 
the  Itoulets,  and  with  the  Moreaus,  the  general 
then  in  exile  from  the  enmity  of  Napoleon. 
Opposed  as  they  had  been  in  politics  in  France, 
in  America  the  French  exiles  met  on  a  common 
ground  of  love  for  France.  A  brother,  after 
two  years  of  rigorous  imprisonment  in  France, 
joined  him  in  New  York;  in  the  interval  he 
had  studied  medicine  and  became  in  1810 

"  Doctor  "  Neuville.     He   established  in   New 
12  177 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

York  a  school  for  the  children  of  the  families 
exiled  in  1800  from  St.  Domingo.  Among 
them  was  the  family  Ricord,  whose  son,  edu 
cated  in  this  school,  after  his  return  to  France 
became  the  celebrated  Dr.  Ricord,  and  in  his 
house  there  later  on  welcomed  his  benefactor. 
The  State  of  New  York  appropriated  money 
for  the  school  and  Hyde  de  Neuville  published 
a  monthly  literary  paper  to  earn  more  for  it, 
the  Journal  of  the  Hermit  of  the  Passaic,  for 
near  New  Brunswick,  New  Jersey,  he  made  his 
home,  tried  farming,  and  saw  his  brother  mar 
ried  to  the  daughter  of  the  Marquis  d'Espin- 
ville,  an  exile  from  Havana.  Soon  afterwards 
General  Moreau  left  his  peaceful  home  at  Mor- 
risville,  Pennsylvania,  to  return  to  Europe 
and  fall  in  battle  against  France  and  Napo 
leon.  Hyde  de  Neuville  had  opposed  the  offer 
made  by  Moreau  to  serve  with  the  allies  against 
France.  Royalist  as  he  was,  Neuville  was 
always  a  patriotic  Frenchman,  and  frankly 
wrote  to  Louis  XVIII  that  he  thought  Moreau 
had  not  taken  the  right  course. 

Returning  to  France  at  the  call  of  the  Due 

d'Angouleme,  Hyde  de  Neuville  received  very 

178 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

flattering  letters  from  Dewitt  Clinton,  then 
mayor,  later  governor,  and  from  the  "  Eco 
nomical  Society  "  of  New  York,  for  his  services 
as  founder  and  secretary  of  that  useful  body. 
In  France  and  through  Europe  he  resumed  all 
his  old  activity  in  support  of  the  royal  cause, 
represented  it  in  the  French  Legislature 
after  the  fall  of  Napoleon,  and  in  1816  was 
sent  to  the  United  States  as  French  Minister. 
Welcomed  alike  by  the  public  authorities  and 
by  his  old  friends  and  by  the  pupils  of  the 
school  he  had  founded,  after  a  short  stay  on 
his  farm  at  New  Brunswick,  he  went  to  Wash 
ington,  where  he  was  warmly  received  by 
President  Monroe,  whose  acquaintance  he  had 
made  when  Monroe  was  American  Minister 
in  Paris.  He  visited  Madison  and  Jefferson 
at  their  homes  in  Virginia,  and  his  correspond 
ence  with  the  Due  de  Richelieu,  the  French 
Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs  (his  wife  was  a 
Montcalm,  another  suggestion  of  France  in 
America),  is  full  of  details  of  their  recollec 
tions  of  their  stay  in  Paris  as  American 
ministers. 

Much  of  his  time  was  taken  up  in  keeping 
179 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

watch  over  the  French  exiles  living  in  the 
United  States.  Joseph  Bonaparte  was  the 
head  of  a  large  body  of  French  exiles,  busy  in 
scheming  for  Napoleon.  Dupont  de  Nemours 
asked  help  for  a  very  different  body  of  French, 
refugees  from  St.  Domingo,  and  Hyde  de 
Neuville  gave  the  French  Consuls  instruc 
tions  in  regard  to  them.  In  New  York 
there  were  Regnault,  Quinet,  and  Real;  in 
Philadelphia  Joseph  Bonaparte,  Grouchy, 
Clausel,  Gamier  de  Saintes;  in  New  Or 
leans,  Lefebvre  Desnouettes,  while  a  colony 
was  established  on  the  shores  of  the  Ohio. 
The  Due  de  Richelieu  and  the  King  both  ap 
proved  his  sending  a  portrait  of  Napoleon, 
found  in  the  French  Legation  at  Washington, 
to  Joseph  Bonaparte,  then  living  at  Borden- 
town,  whence  it  returned  later  to  the  legation. 
Many  of  the  French  exiles  fled  from  France  to 
avoid  the  punishment  to  which  they  had  been 
condemned  by  the  Courts  for  political  offences, 
but  the  French  authorities  were  apparently 
only  too  glad  to  be  rid  of  them,  and  the  United 
States  gave  a  peaceful  home  alike  to  Girondists 
and  Jacobins,  to  Royalists  and  Imperialists,  to 
180 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

men  of  any  and  of  no  political  opinions,  as 
long  as  they  were  peaceful  residents  and  good 
citizens.  While  there  were  some  unsuccessful 
schemes  set  on  foot  in  the  United  States  to 
release  Napoleon  from  St.  Helena,  Neuville 
wrote  home  that  Grouchy,  Lefebvre  Desnou- 
ettes  and  Lallemand  and  Clausel  were  all  loyal 
to  the  existing  French  government.  Clausel 
wrote  of  the  misfortunes  of  the  French  officers 
in  exile  in  the  United  States,  and  suggested 
that  help  be  given  them  to  settle  in  Havana 
and  Porto  Rico.  Some  of  them,  however,  re 
turned  to  France  and  became  high  officers 
under  the  more  liberal  policy  of  Louis  Philippe. 
The  "  Conventionnel  Lakanal  "  was  reported 
by  Neuville  in  1817,  as  an  agent  of  Joseph 
Bonaparte  in  a  plan  to  make  the  latter  King 
of  Mexico,  part  of  Burr's  conspiracy.  Just 
before  leaving  Washington,  to  return  to 
France,  he  obtained  from  the  government  there, 
in  1818,  means  to  continue  his  "  Economical 
School "  in  New  York,  for  the  children  of  the 
impoverished  refugees  from  St.  Domingo,  and 
even  to  help  some  of  them  to  return  to  France. 

He  himself  went  there,  and  after  a  short  stay 
181 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

in  Paris  again  returned  temporarily  to  Wash 
ington,  to  complete  his  negotiations  with  the 
government  of  the  United  States.  Finally 
recalled  to  France,  he  found  his  friends, 
among  them  Chateaubriand,  in  the  govern 
ment,  and  later  on  he  became  a  minister 
of  state  under  Louis  Philippe.  Living  until 
1857,  he  was  always  fond  of  dwelling  on  his 
American  life,  as  exile,  and  as  minister.  His 
active  participation  in  the  relief  of  his  country 
men  in  exile  here  was  without  regard  to  dif 
ferences  of  political  opinions,  and  his  name 
figures  with  honor  in  the  writings  of  Chateau 
briand  and  Lamartine,  as  that  of  a  Frenchman 
who,  both  as  a  private  citizen  and  as  a  minister, 
appreciated  this  country  and  its  welcome. 


XVI 

BALZAC'S  STORY  OF  A  FRENCH  EXILE 

BALZAC  in  "  Les  Celibataires,  un  Menage 
de  Garden  "  (vol.  ii  of  "  Scenes  de  la  vie  de 
Province  ")  makes  his  hero  (and  a  great  scamp 
he  is)  Captain  Philippe  Bridau,  who  went  from 
Saint  Cyr  in  1813,  became  a  sub-lieutenant  in 
a  cavalry  regiment,  later  a  lieutenant,  for 
gallantry  in  saving  his  colonel  in  an  affair  of 
outpost  duty,  was  made  captain  at  the  battle 
of  Fere  Champenoise,  and  ordnance  officer  by 
the  emperor,  got  the  cross  at  Montereau ;  re 
fused  to  serve  under  the  Bourbons;  in  1814 
rejoined  the  emperor  at  Lyons,  accompanied 
him  to  the  Tuileries,  was  made  chef  d'escadron 
of  the  Guards  Dragoons,  wounded  at  Waterloo, 
where  he  gained  the  cross  of  the  Legion  of 
Honor,  was  protected  by  Marshal  Davoust,  and 
was  put  on  half  pay.  After  the  restoration, 
he  joined  General  Lallemand  in  the  United 

States,  and  cooperated  in  founding  the  Champs 
183 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

d'Asile,  supported  by  one  of  the  most  curious 
mystifications  known  as  a  national  subscription. 
His  mother  had  given  him  ten  thousand  francs 
on  sailing  from  Havre ;  no  sooner  in  New  York 
than  he  drew  on  her  for  one  thousand  francs, 
having  lost  everything  at  Champs  d'Asile.  Re 
turned  to  France  in  1819,  ruined  by  his  mis 
fortunes  in  Texas  and  his  stay  in  New  York, 
where  speculation  and  individualism  were 
carried  to  the  highest  pitch ;  where  the  brutality 
of  interests  reached  cynicism ;  where  the  isolated 
man  looked  only  for  himself;  where  politeness 
did  not  exist, — Bridau,  who  cared  for  only 
one  person,  himself,  became  brutal,  intemper 
ate,  selfish,  impolite ;  misery  and  suffering  had 
depraved  him,  New  York  had  taken  away  his 
least  scruples  in  morality.  Bronzed  by  his 
stay  in  Texas,  he  had  a  sharp  and  short  way 
of  making  himself  respected  in  New  York. 
The  idea  of  the  conquest  of  Texas  by  the  hand 
ful  of  the  imperial  army  that  went  there  to 
establish  the  Champs  d'Asile,  was  a  fine  one, 
for  in  spite  of  its  failure,  Texas  is  a  republic 
full  of  future  greatness.  Liberalism  under  the 
Restoration  was  pure  egotism;  it  helped  noth- 
184 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

ing  to  try  to  refound  the  empire  in  America. 
The  liberal  chiefs  soon  saw  that  they  were  help 
ing  Louis  XVIII  by  exporting  from  France  the 
glorious  remains  of  its  armies,  and  they  aban 
doned  the  most  devoted,  ardent  enthusiasts, 
who  were  the  first  to  go. 

Bridau  was  welcomed  on  his  return  from 
Texas  and  Champs  d'Asile  as  a  "  soldier- 
laborer."  That  was  the  title  for  a  deluge  of 
engravings,  clocks,  bronzes,  etc.,  a  sort  of 
tribute  to  Napoleon  and  his  brave  soldiers,  who 
figured  in  many  plays  of  the  time.  It  yielded 
a  fortune,  and  to  this  day  the  "  soldier- 
laborer  "  is  found  in  country  homes  through 
France  in  one  or  other  of  these  devices. 

It  was  always  possible  to  threaten  the 
Liberals  with  the  story  of  the  blunders  in 
Texas,  of  the  waste  and  pilfering  of  the 
national  subscription  started  for  the  Champs 
d'Asile. 

Balzac  thus  perpetuates  the  story  of  the 
French  "  Champs  d'Asile "  in  Texas  and  its 
failure. 


XVII 

FRENCH  MEMBERS  OF  THE  AMERICAN 
PHILOSOPHICAL  SOCIETY 

IN  1768  Buffon  was  elected  a  member  of 
the  American  Philosophical  Society.  This 
was  a  genuine  tribute  to  his  fame,  for  in  those 
colonial  days  the  relations  of  that  young 
society,  the  outgrowth  of  Franklin's  Junto, 
were  close  with  the  Mother  Country.  In  that 
year  Sir  William  Johnson  and  General  Gage 
followed  Buffon  on  its  rolls.  Mr.  T.  Penn 
sent  to  the  secretary,  Provost  Smith,  Mas- 
kelyne's  Observations  on  Venus,  and  he  was 
elected  in  1771 ;  Du  Simitiere  followed,  a 
Frenchman  still  known  by  his  antiquarian  col 
lections,  and  who  no  doubt  brought  some 
French  spirit  to  the  meetings. 

In  1772  Le  Rey,  of  the  Academy  of  Sciences 
in  Paris,  a  friend  and  correspondent  of  Frank 
lin,  was  elected,  along  with  Lieutenant  Adye 
of  the  Royal  Artillery,  Lieutenant  Hutchins 
186 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

of  the  Sixtieth  (Royal  American)  Regiment, 
and  Captain  John  Montresor  of  the  engineers. 
In  1774  Franklin  presented  Buffon's  works,  a 
gift  from  the  author,  and  Lavoisier's,  with  a 
letter  from  the  author,  and  queries  from 
Condorcet,  and  they  were  elected,  along  with 
noteworthy  men  from  London,  Barbadoes,  and 
Jamaica, — often  in  acknowledgment  of  works 
presented.  In  1775  Franklin,  presiding,  pre 
sented  a  number  of  scientific  works,  and  from 
the  outset  he  was  active  in  thus  securing  con 
tributions ;  one  of  them  was  an  English  book, 
by  his  friend  Sir  John  Pringle;  then  fol 
lowed  the  interruption  of  the  war,  and  when 
meetings  were  resumed,  among  the  newly- 
elected  members  was  Gerard  de  Rayneval, 
French  minister;  and  a  hound  volume  of  the 
Transactions  was  presented  to  him  and  received 
with  expression  of  his  intention  to  forward  the 
views  of  the  Society  in  America  and  in  France ; 
he  attended  a  meeting  and  agreed  to  forward 
to  Buffon  the  thanks  of  the  Society  for  his 
superb  present  of  his  works.  In  1780  Luzerne, 
the  French  minister,  was  elected  and  attended, 

and  in  1781  Lafayette  was  elected;  at  a  later 

187 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

meeting  Barbe  Marbois,  recently  elected,  pre 
sided  ;  and  "  ten  pounds  of  the  best  kind  of  raw 
silk  produced  in  Pennsylvania  was  ordered 
to  be  sent  to  Lyons,  there  to  be  wrought 
in  the  most  elegant  manner,  and  presented  to 
her  Most  Christian  Majesty  as  a  mark  of  very 
high  respect."  This  was  following  the  prece 
dent  set  in  1770,  when  the  Society  for  Pro 
moting  the  Culture  of  Silk  in  Pennsylvania 
sent  Franklin  a  quantity  to  be  presented 
to  the  Queen  of  England  and  to  the  Penns, 
and  in  1772,  when  it  sent  him  forty-five 
pounds  of  raw  silk,  in  acknowledgment  of 
the  trouble  he  had  taken  in  the  business. 
In  1783,  on  the  motion  of  Jefferson, 
the  Philosophical  Society  ordered  that  Rit- 
tenhouse  should  make  an  orrery  to  be 
presented  to  the  King  of  France.  In  1784 
Vergennes  was  elected,  and  later  in  the  year, 
Lafayette,  by  special  appointment,  "  enter 
tained  the  members  with  an  account  of  the 
invisible  power  called  Animal  Magnetism,  lately 
discovered  by  Mesmer,"  and  later  on  Marbois 
presented  the  report  of  the  King  of  France's 

commissioners  on  the  subject.     In  1785  three 

188 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

volumes  of  the  Proceedings  of  the  Royal 
French  Academy,  and  "  a  very  curious  elec 
trical  apparatus,"  were  presented  through  Mr. 
Marbois,  by  Dr.  Noel  of  Paris.  In  1786  among 
the  members  elected  were  the  Due  de  Roche 
foucauld,  the  Marquis  de  Condorcet,  Charles 
the  aeronaut,  Cabanis ;  in  1787,  Otto,  French 
Minister  to  the  United  States,  and  Cadet  de 
Vaux;  books  were  received  from  Belin 
de  Villeneuve,  Moreau  de  St.  Mery,  Marbois, 
Brissot  de  Warville;  later  in  the  year  was 
presented  Quesnay  de  Beaurepaire's  account 
of  the  Academy  of  Sciences  and  Belles  Lettres 
established  by  him  at  Richmond,  in  Virginia; 
Legau  was  elected  in  recognition,  no  doubt, 
of  his  vineyards  at  Spring  Mills,  Penn 
sylvania.  In  1791  Duponceau  and  Ternant, 
Minister  from  France,  were  elected ;  in  1792 
Mathurin  de  la  Forest  and  Palisot  de  Beauvois, 
and  the  latter  attended  and  submitted  a  paper 
on  a  botanical  subject;  in  1792  Legau  pre 
sented  his  work  on  Surinam,  and  later  St. 
George  a  paper  on  the  Diseases  of  St.  Domingo 
and  hot  climates  in  general;  and  Legau  one 

on  Vine  Culture  in  Pennsylvania.     The  list  of 
189 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

distinguished  Frenchmen  who  were  members  of 
the  Philosophical  Society  was  largely  increased 
after  France  became  an  ally  in  the  struggle 
with  Great  Britain.  Many  of  the  Frenchmen 
who  served  here  were  elected,  and  nearly  all  of 
its  diplomatic  and  consular  representatives 
of  the  time;  Lafayette  and  Chastellux,  Otto, 
and  Luzerne,  and  D'Angeville,  and  Vergennes ; 
Guichen  and  Rochefoucauld  and  Franklin's 
friends,  Le  Veillard  and  Cadet  de  Vaux, 
and  Cabanis,  and  Le  Roux;  in  1789  St. 
Jean  de  Crevecoeur  (better  known  as  Hector 
St.  John,  the  name  under  which  he  wrote  his 
"Farmer  in  Pennsylvania"),  Moreau  de  St. 
Mery,  Brissot;  in  1791  Gallatin,  and  Du- 
ponceau;  in  1793  Valentini;  in  1796  Roche 
foucauld  Liancourt,  Grandpre,  Le  Compte, 
Adet,  French  Minister  to  the  United  States, 
Talleyrand  Perigord;  in  1797  Volney;  in 
1800  Dupont  de  Nemours;  in  1802  Houme; 
in  1803  Delambre;  in  1806  Destutt  de 
Tracy;  in  1807  Lasteyrie;  in  1809 
Michaux;  in  1811  Vauquelin;  in  1817 
Lesueur,  Delametrie,  and  Deleuze;  in  1829 

Hyde    de    Neuville,    Pougens,    Jomard,    and 
190 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

Remusat.  In  1793  money  was  subscribed 
towards  the  expense  of  Michaux's  Western 
journey  of  discoveries;  Citizen  Genet,  French 
Minister,  presented  a  letter  and  pamphlet  on 
the  French  reform  of  the  Calendar ;  and  Doctor 
Nassey  addressed  the  Society  in  French  on 
botany;  later  Fauchet,  French  Minister  to  the 
United  States,  presented  a  description  of  the 
New  System  of  Weights  and  Measures  adopted 
by  the  French  Republic;  M.  Lerebours,  lately 
from  Paris,  gave  an  account  of  the  late  curious 
and  useful  discoveries  and  inventions  relating 
to  the  arts,  made  in  France  since  the  commence 
ment  of  the  Revolution,  with  a  number  of 
pamphlets  on  the  same  subject;  in  1795 
Moreau  de  St.  Mery  presented  some  curious 
articles  from  St.  Domingo  and  a  medal  of 
Louis  XVI,  July  17,  1789,  and  later  a  silver 
medal  of  Louis  XV,  struck  on  the  occasion  of 
the  peace  of  1763;  he  seems  to  have  been  a 
pretty  steady  attendant  at  the  meetings.  In 
1796  Doctor  Grassi,  "  late  of  Bordeaux,  now 
of  Philadelphia,"  Rochefoucauld  Liancourt, 
Le  Comte,  Le  Fessier  de  Grandpre,  and 

Citizen     Adet,     Minister     Plenipotentiary     of 
191 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

the  French  Republic  to  the  United  States, 
were  elected  at  the  same  meeting,  and  Grassi, 
Adet,  and  Liancourt  attended  several  subse 
quent  meetings ;  later  Lerebours,  "  late  of 
Paris,  now  of  Philadelphia,"  Larocque,  and  M. 
Talleyrand  Perigord  were  present; in  1797  Vol- 
ney  attended  meetings ;  he  was  present  when  St. 
Mery  presented  "  from  the  author,"  Adet's 
"  Doctrine  of  Phlogistique  and  the  Decomposi 
tion  of  Water"  in  French;  then,  in  1800,  the 
Society  received  Dupont  de  Nemours'  book, 
"  Philosophic  de  PUnivers,"  and  thanks  were 
voted  and  delivered  by  Jefferson ;  and  later 
more  papers  were  received  from  Dupont,  yet 
the  committee  to  which  one  of  them  was  re 
ferred,  reported  that  although  ingenious,  it  was 
not  of  sufficient  importance  to  publish,  but 
later  on  the  publication  was  ordered  of  his 
translation  of  Baudry  de  Loziere's  paper  on 
Animal  Cotton. 

In  1803  the  National  Institute  of  France 
promised,  as  successors  of  the  French  Academy, 
to  resume  correspondence  and  exchanges ;  Gen 
eral  Toussard  presented  a  paper  on  proving 

cannon;  the  library  was  enriched  by  the  nu- 
192 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

merous  volumes  of  "  L'Encyclopedie."  In 
1805  Dupont  de  Nemours  sent  from  Paris  De 
Candolle's  "  Essai  sur  les  proprietes  medicinales 
des  plantes,"  and  many  French  books  were  re 
ceived  from  other  sources,  some  by  purchase, 
many  as  gifts,  from  Hassler  the  volumes  neces 
sary  to  complete  the  Transactions  of  the  French 
Academy  of  Science,  which  Franklin  left  to  it. 

It  is  a  noteworthy  fact  that  Franklin's 
legacy  to  the  Philosophical  Society  was  ninety- 
one  volumes  of  the  History  of  the  Royal  Acad 
emy  of  Sciences  of  France,  and  that  later  the 
Society  bought  from  Franklin's  library  many 
of  his  French  scientific  works,  e.g.,  Bailly's 
History  of  Astronomy,  those  of  Condamine,  De 
Luc,  Desagulier,  Berthelot,  De  Saussure,  La 
voisier,  De  la  Lande,  as  well  as  a  number  of 
serial  volumes  of  French  scientific  societies. 
Thus  was  begun  that  collection  of  the  Transac 
tions,  etc.,  of  French  scientific  societies  that  now 
form  so  important  a  part  of  the  library. 

In  1807  Jefferson  presented  pamphlets  from 
the  authors,  De  Lasteyrie  on  Cotton  and 
Cossigny  on  Sugar.  In  1809  Michaux  ob- 

13  193 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

tained  the  completion  to  date  of  the  French 
scientific  journals,  and  imported  for  the  Society 
the  works  of  Brongniart,  Bronchart,  Hauy, 
and  Berthelot.  In  1817  the  election  of  Lesueur 
brought  a  French  naturalist  who  made  frequent 
communication  of  his  researches;  he  was  con 
stant  in  attendance  at  the  meetings,  and  took 
part  in  the  election  of  Desmarest,  Blainville, 
and  Latreille  of  Paris  in  1819;  he  served  dili 
gently  both  before  and  after  his  Western  visit 
with  Maclure;  in  1823  he  was  present  when  the 
Society  elected  Joseph  Count  de  Survilliers  and 
Lucien  Prince  of  Canino.  In  1824  Lafayette 
was  received  by  the  Society  with  marked  honors. 
In  1825  Charles  Bonaparte  attended  and  he  and 
Lesueur  and  Duponceau  recalled  the  days  of 
frequent  attendance  by  French  members  and 
visitors.  Charles  Bonaparte  made  donations  to 
the  library,  and  Lesueur  gave  his  drawings 
from  the  fossil  bones  in  the  cabinet.  In  1829 
Hyde  de  Neuville,  then  French  Minister  to  the 
United  States,  was  elected  a  member;  and 
Pougens;  in  1830  M.  A.  Julien ;  in  1831  Louis 
Philippe,  King  of  the  French;  in  1833  the 

members  of  the  Society  subscribed  towards  a 
194 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

statue  of  Cuvier,  and  sent  the  money  in  the 
name  of  the  Society  to  the  French  Academy; 
in  1833  M.  Nicollet  "of  Paris,  then  in 
Georgia,"  reported  his  progress  in  scientific  ob 
servations  in  the  Southern  States;  in  1834  the 
death  of  Lafayette  was  formally  announced 
and  due  action  taken.  In  1837  the  death  of 
Barbe  Marbois  in  his  ninety-fifth  year  was 
announced  and  Duponceau  was  appointed  to 
prepare  a  memoir  of  him.  He  had  been  Na 
poleon's  Minister  of  Finance.  Other  notable 
Frenchmen  elected  were  Larrey,  the  great 
French  surgeon,  Roux  de  Rochelle,  Guizot,  De 
Tocqueville,  Poussin,  the  French  Minister  to 
the  United  States,  Pouchet,  Michel  Chevalier, 
Cauchey,  Brown-Sequard,  Durand,  Elie  de 
Beaumont,  Milne-Edwards,  St.  Claire-De- 
ville,  J.  B.  Dumas,  Verneuil,  Lesquereux, 
Renan,  Boucher  des  Perthes,  Gasparin,  De 
Ronge,  Linant,  Mariette,  Lartet,  Carlier,  Leon 
Say,  Broca,  Viollet  le  Due,  Claude  Jannet, 
Paul  Leroy  Beaulieu,  Rosny,  Pasteur,  Hovc- 
lacque,  Levasseur,  Duruy,  Nadaillac,  Reville, 
Topinard,  Taine,  Berthelot,  George  Bertin, 

Delambre,  Delage,  Becquerel,  Darboux,  Mas- 
195 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

pero,  Poincare.  Thus  from  the  early  election 
of  Buffon,  with  the  later  welcome  to  the  French 
who  served  in  the  American  war,  the  hearty 
reception  of  French  refugees  and  exiles,  down 
to  our  own  day,  with  its  representatives  of 
French  science  and  letters,  the  records  of  the 
Society  show  how  largely  its  membership  was 
recruited  by  notable  Frenchmen.  At  the  elec 
tion  of  1907,  the  Society  chose  M.  Jusserand, 
the  French  ambassador  to  the  United  States, 
and  a  scholarly  man  of  letters. 

Pontgibaud  says  that  "  Duportail  told  him 
the  French  refugees  found  Philadelphia  an  ark 
of  safety.  Constitutionalists,  Conventional 
ists,  Thermidorians,  Fructidorians,  as  well  as 
Royalists  and  Girondists,  met  on  common 
ground;  Moreau  de  St.  Mery  kept  a  sta 
tioner's  shop,  where  they  met  to  discuss  the 
future  of  France;  Noailles,  Liancourt,  Tal 
leyrand  speculated  in  stocks  and  land;  the 
French  cook  who  supplied  the  Due  d'Orleans 
and  his  brothers,  forbade  Volney  coming  to  his 
little  restaurant  while  they  were  there." 

In    1844    Doctor    Dunglison    delivered    an 

eulogium  on  Duponceau.     It  followed  in  due 
196 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

course  that  on  Franklin  by  Provost  Smith, 
that  on  Rittenhouse  by  Doctor  Rush,  that  on 
Doctor  Wistar  by  Chief  Justice  Tilghman,  that 
on  Tilghman  by  Duponceau,  and  that  on  Jef 
ferson  by  Nicholas  Biddle.  Born  on  the  west 
coast  of  France  in  1760,  Duponceau  learned 
English  from  the  soldiers  of  an  Irish  regiment 
stationed  in  the  town,  and  later  Italian  in  the 
same  way.  Unwillingly  he  took  the  tonsure, 
but  soon  gave  up  holy  orders,  and  went  to  Paris 
to  seek  his  fortune.  Through  Beaumarchais  he 
entered  the  service  of  Steuben  as  secretary,  and 
with  him  landed  in  Portsmouth,  New  Hamp 
shire,  in  1777.  As  a  captain  of  infantry  of 
the  line  of  the  Army  of  the  Revolution  he  re 
ceived  a  pension  until  the  day  of  his  death. 
After  leaving  the  army,  in  1781,  owing  to  ill 
health,  he  became  a  citizen  of  Pennsylvania, 
and  settled  in  Philadelphia.  He  was  secre 
tary  of  Robert  R.  Livingston,  Secretary  for 
Foreign  Affairs,  studied  law  and  was  admitted 
to  the  bar  in  1785,  and  became  one  of  its  ac 
knowledged  leaders.  In  1827  he  was  elected 
a  member  of  the  French  Institute,  in  recogni 
tion  of  his  linguistic  studies,  and  in  1835  was 
197 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

awarded  the  prize  founded  by  Volney,  for  his 
Memoir  on  the  Indian  languages  of  North 
America.  He  spent  time  and  money  in  an  un 
successful  effort  to  introduce  the  production 
and  manufacture  of  silk  in  this  country. 
Elected  to  the  Philosophical  Society  in  1791, 
he  became  a  vice-president  in  1816,  and  presi 
dent  in  1827.  Among  his  bequests  to  the 
Society  were  twenty-one  volumes  of  the 
Moniteur  from  1789  to  1809. 

Talleyrand  read  a  "  Memoir  concerning 
the  Commercial  Relations  of  the  United  States 
with  England,"  at  the  National  Institute,  the 
15th  Germinal,  in  the  Year  V,  to  which  was 
added  "  An  Essay  upon  the  Advantages  to  be 
derived  from  New  Colonies  in  the  existing  cir 
cumstances,"  read  at  the  Institute,  the  15th 
Messidor  in  the  Year  V,  with  Notes,  in  the 
month  of  Ventose,  Year  VII, — published  in 
London  for  Longman,  1806,  in  a  pamphlet  of 
87  pages.  In  it  there  are  a  good  many  refer 
ences  to  his  visit  here.  "  In  every  part  of 
America  through  which  I  have  travelled,  I  did 
not  meet  a  single  Frenchman  who  did  not  find 

himself  a  stranger.     It  is  a  novel  sight  to  the 
198 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

traveller,  who,  setting  out  from  a  principal 
city,  where  society  is  in  perfection,  passes  in 
succession  through  all  the  degrees  of  civiliza 
tion  and  industry,  which  he  finds  constantly 
growing  weaker  and  weaker,  until  in  a  few 
days,  he  arrives  at  misshapen  and  rude  cabins, 
formed  of  the  trunks  of  trees  lately  cut  down. 
It  would  require  a  French  establishment  in 
America  to  counteract  the  indolence  and  want 
of  native  character. 

"  Have  we  not  seen  of  late  years,  since  there 
have  been  political  opinions  in  France,  men 
of  all  parties  embark  together,  and  go  to  run 
the  same  risks  upon  the  uninhabited  banks  of 
the  Scioto? 

"  Louisiana  remains  French,  although  it  has 
been  under  the  domination  of  the  Spaniards  for 
more  than  thirty  years,  and  in  Canada,  al 
though  in  the  power  of  the  English  for  the 
same  length  of  time,  the  colonists  of  these  two 
countries  were  Frenchmen,  they  are  so  still." 

In  Mr.  Whitelaw  Reid's  introduction  to  the 

Due  de  Broglie's   edition   of  the  Memoirs  of 

Talleyrand,  (there  could  not  be  better  sponsors 

to  their  authenticity,  in  spite  of  the  suspicion 

199 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

thrown  on  them  by  the  fact  that  M.  de  Bacourt 
was  their  custodian,)  he  says:  "Talleyrand 
spent  many  months  in  the  United  States  soon 
after  the  establishment  of  their  independence, 
in  which  France  had  aided ;  and  while  a  Revolu 
tion,  stimulated  in  part  by  the  American 
example,  was  in  progress  in  his  own  land,  he 
found  in  his  recollections  of  his  American  visit 
almost  nothing  suggested  by  either  event,  and 
nothing  concerning  the  great  man,  then  Chief 
Magistrate  of  the  country  which  gave  him  hos 
pitality.  His  lack  of  sympathy  with  republican 
ism,  whether  in  the  United  States  or  in  France, 
explains  the  one  omission ;  and  Washing 
ton's  refusal  to  receive  him,  explains  the  other. 
Lord  Lansdowne  had  given  him  a  warm  letter 
of  introduction  to  Washington,  setting  forth 
that  Talleyrand  was  really  in  exile  because, 
although  a  bishop,  he  had  desired  to  promote 
the  general  freedom  of  worship,  and  eulogizing 
him  for  having  sacrificed  his  ambition  in  the 
Church  to  his  devotion  to  principle.  Wash 
ington  possibly  had  his  own  views  as  to  the 
extent  to  which  Talleyrand's  exile  was  due  to 
his  high  religious  principles.  Hamilton's  in- 
200 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

fluence,  always  great,  was  j  oined  to  Lord  Lans- 
downe's  eulogy,  but  both  were  unavailing.  The 
refusal  to  receive  the  French  exile,  however, 
was  quietly  put  upon  political  grounds."  Fol 
lowing  his  expulsion  from  England  by  Pitt, 
Talleyrand  naturally  had  little  praise  for 
either  Pitt  or  Washington.  Of  his  later 
dealings  with  the  United  States,  Mr.  Reid 
says :  "  Talleyrand  gave  notice  to  the 
American  Ministers  Plenipotentiary  in  Paris 
that  they  must  buy  peace  or  leave  the 
country.  When  the  American  Commission 
ers  resented  his  demand  for  a  bribe  of  two 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars  for  him 
self  and  a  bigger  one  called  a  loan  for  the 
Directory,  his  representative  naively  said, 
'  Don't  you  know  that  everything  is  bought  in 
Paris?  Do  you  dream  that  you  can  get  on 
with  this  government  without  paying  your 
way? '  This  from  the  man  who  had  been 
honored  with  Hamilton's  friendship,  and  who 
shrewdly  said,  shortly  after  the  adoption  of 
the  Constitution,  '  that  was  the  true  date  of 
the  foundation  of  the  United  States;  it  was 

the  real  sheet-anchor  of  American  independ- 
201 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

ence,'  was  a  cynical  measure  of  the  men  in  office 
under  it." 

In  his  story  figure  the  names  of  his  fel 
low-exiles,  men  of  a  very  different  type, 
Noailles,  who  fell  in  action  near  Havana  fight 
ing  for  France,  Brissot  de  Warville,  who  died 
on  the  scaffold,  Barbe  Marbois,  French  Consul 
in  Philadelphia,  and  others. 

In  his  narrative  he  tells  the  story  of  meet 
ing  Benedict  Arnold,  just  as  Talleyrand  was 
leaving  for  America,  and  in  vain  asking  him 
for  letters  of  introduction  to  his  friends  in 
America,  and  Arnold's  characteristic  reply: 
"  I  am  the  only  American  who  cannot  give  you 
letters  for  his  own  country."  In  Philadelphia 
he  met  Casanove  and  Huidekoper,  agents  of 
the  Holland  Land  Company,  and  travelled  with 
the  latter  inland.  He  could  not  have  had  a 
better  guide.  He  speaks  of  the  two  winters 
spent  in  Philadelphia  and  New  York,  and 
praises  Hamilton  as  on  a  par  with  Pitt  or  Fox 
or  other  distinguished  European  statesmen. 
He  speaks  in  high  praise  of  the  enterprise  of 
American  merchants  and  says  that  in  1794  he 
witnessed  the  return  of  the  first  American 
202 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

trading  expedition  to  the  East  Indies,  and  in 
the  following  year  fourteen  American  vessels 
started  for  India  from  different  ports  in  order 
to  obtain  a  share  of  the  enormous  profits 
secured  by  the  English  company.  He  spent 
thirty  months  in  the  United  States,  keeping  up 
close  correspondence  with  Mme.  de  Stael,  to 
whom  on  his  return  he  owed  his  introduction 
to  B arras,  and  through  him  his  relations  with 
Napoleon.  It  was  before  the  National  Insti 
tute,  organized  in  1795,  on  the  foundation  of 
the  old  academies  abolished  in  1792,  to  which 
he  was  elected  a  member  of  the  section  of  Moral 
and  Political  Sciences,  that  he  read  his  paper 
on  "  The  Commercial  Intercourse  of  England 
with  the  United  States,"  published  in  its 
volume  of  Proceedings  of  1799,  along  with  a 
second,  on  "  Advantages  to  be  Derived  from 
New  Colonies,"  which  he  says,  attracted  a  cer 
tain  notice.  These  are  the  results  of  his  stay 
in  the  United  States,  and  have  value  and  inter 
est  on  that  account. 

In  the  collection  of  the  Philosophical  Society 
there  is  a  MS.  of  Mr.   Samuel  Breck,  dated 
1862,   giving  an  account  of  the  early   mem- 
203 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

bers  of  the  Society  he  had  known;  Mr. 
Breck  was  then  in  his  ninety-first  year.  He 
was  born  in  1771  in  Boston ;  he  had  become  a 
member  of  the  Society  in  1838,  and  died  in 
1862,  shortly  after  writing,  at  the  request 
of  Doctor  Bache,  then  president  of  the 
Society,  his  memoranda.  They  have  the  per 
sonal  note  of  actual  acquaintance  with  those 
whose  names  are  now  historical  and  of  others 
who  by  their  writings  have  an  interest  as  mem 
bers  of  this  venerable  Society.  He  says: 
"Talleyrand  came  to  Philadelphia  in  1794 
to  reside  there  until  France  is  at  peace.  He 
took  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  State  of 
Pennsylvania.  He  listened  to  Hamilton's 
argument  in  the  United  States  Court  on  the 
constitutionality  of  the  Carriage  Tax  law.  He 
equipped  himself  in  full  hunting-suit  for  a 
visit  to  the  then  Western  frontier,  and  saw 
there  only  the  destruction  of  the  forests,  just 
as  in  our  hardy  fishermen  he  saw  only  idlers. 
Yet  both  sea  and  forest  were  then  beginning 
to  earn  sums  that  laid  the  foundation  of  our 
wealth. 

"  Volney  was  another  refugee  from  the  vio- 

204 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

lence  of  the  French  Revolution.  He  taught 
French  to  a  few  pupils  whose  liberal  pay  con 
tributed  to  his  support;  he  made  an  offer  of 
marriage,  which  was  rejected.  Perhaps  this 
accounted,  in  part  at  least,  for  his  haughty 
and  morose  nature,  jealous  of  the  least  appear 
ance  of  slight  or  neglect ;  and  presuming  much 
upon  his  celebrity  as  a  writer,  he  judged 
Americans  in  his  conversations  and  publications 
as  an  inferior  people,  unworthy  of  renown  and 
wanting  in  morals  and  republican  purity. 
Washington,  in  his  opinion,  would  never  have 
been  more  than  a  colonel  in  the  French  army ; 
he  condemned  the  growing  luxury  in  America, 
and  anticipated  a  visit  of  the  Algerine  pirates 
to  levy  tribute  on  our  ports. 

"  Brissot  de  Warville  was  equally  hostile  to 
the  growing  luxury  and  refinement  of  the  cities 
of  America,  as  a  sign  of  decay  of  republican 
simplicity.  Alike  they  condemned  American 
manners,  climate,  food,  and  both  longed  for 
the  return  to  France  and  to  the  honors  await 
ing  them.  Brissot,  however,  was  guillotined 
in  1793. 

"  Rochefoucauld  Liancourt  took  his  exile  and 

20$ 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

poverty  in  very  good  spirits,  and  his  account 
of  his  travels  is  kindly  towards  the  New  World. 

"  Louis  Philippe  came  to  Philadelphia  in 
1796,  and  bore  his  enforced  exile  good- 
naturedly.  He  painted  a  miniature  of  Miss 
Willing  and  was  said  to  have  asked  her  to 
marry  him.  He  was  joined  in  Philadelphia 
by  his  younger  brothers,  the  Dues  de  Mont- 
pensier  and  Beaujolais.  They  made  a  jour 
ney  on  horseback  through  Pennsylvania  and 
New  York  and  to  the  Falls  of  Niagara." 

Mr.  Breck  mentions  the  fact  that  Gouver- 
neur  Morris  secured  for  Mrs.  Robert  Morris 
an  annuity  of  sixteen  hundred  dollars  out  of 
the  lands  bought  by  Le  Ray  de  Chaumont,  and 
this  was  her  sole  support  until  her  death. 

Mr.  Breck  spent  four  years  at  a  military 
school  at  Loreze  in  the  south  of  France,  and 
in  1787  on  his  arrival  in  Paris  on  his  way 
home  to  America  made  the  acquaintance  of 
Hector  St.  John  de  Crevecceur,  the  author  of 
the  "  Letters  from  an  American  Farmer," 
which  did  much  to  enlist  foreign  interest  in 
America.  His  book,  published  in  Paris  in 

1787,    covers    his    personal    experiences    as    a 
206 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

farmer  in  Pennsylvania  from  1770  to  1786. 
Through  him  Breck  made  the  acquaintance  of 
Brissot  de  Warville,  who  later  took  refuge 
from  the  French  Revolution  in  Philadelphia, 
and  returned  American  hospitality  by  violent 
diatribes  against  American  morals  and  man 
ners.  "  Brissot  came  in  1788  and  had  little 
good  to  say  in  his  book,  published  on  his  return 
to  France,  as  to  our  future.  Chastellux,  on  the 
other  hand,  found  only  good  to  say  of  the 
people  and  the  country  whose  independence  he 
as  an  officer  of  Rochambeau's  army  had  helped 
to  secure ;  his  '  Travels  in  the  United  States  ' 
are  of  value  and  interest  as  a  contemporary 
record  of  the  country.  His  tribute  to  Wash 
ington  is  still  often  quoted,  for  it  gives  a  clear 
and  vivid  picture  of  the  great  American,  as 
Chastellux  saw  and  knew  him,  both  in  war  and 
in  peace.  Chastellux  was  elected  a  member  of 
the  Philosophical  Society  in  1781,  and  died  a 
field  marshal  in  1788." 

Breck's  Recollections,  published  in  Philadel 
phia  in  1877,  give  a  further  picture  of  the 
time.  "  In  Philadelphia  all  the  distinguished 

emigrants  from  France  took  up  their  abode, — 
207 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

Talleyrand,  his  companion,  Beaumais,  Vicomte 
de  Noailles,  the  Due  de  Rochefoucauld  Lian- 
court,  Volney,  and  subsequently  Louis  Philippe 
and  his  brothers,  the  Dues  de  Montpensier 
and  BeaujoTais,  and  later  General  Moreau. 
Talleyrand  and  his  companion,  Beaumais, 
equipped  themselves  in  the  costume  of  back 
woodsmen,  with  rifles,  guns,  and  hunting-shirts, 
for  their  Western  tour.  Volney  was  a 
timid,  peevish,  sour-tempered  man.  Washing 
ton  hated  free-thinkers  and  as  President  de 
clined  to  notice  the  French  emigrants,  and  to 
get  rid  of  Volney,  on  his  request  at  Mount 
Vernon  for  a  circular  letter  of  introduction, 
gave  him  one  that  Volney  thought  too  feeble 
for  his  exalted  merit,  hence  the  manner  in  which 
he  speaks  of  that  great  man.  De  Noailles  had 
been  in  America  with  Rochambeau;  his  sister 
was  the  wife  of  Lafayette.  His  form  was  per 
fect — a  fine  face,  tall,  graceful,  the  first 
amateur  dancer  of  the  age,  and  of  very  pleas 
ing  manners.  He  became  a  trader  and 
speculator, — every  day  at  the  coffee-house  or 
exchange,  busy,  holding  his  bank  book  in  one 


208 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

hand  and  a  broker  or  merchant  with  the  other, 
while  he  drove  his  bargains." 

Among  the  scientific  men  brought  to  this 
country  in  1827  by  William  Maclure,  to  help 
out  his  plan  of  a  geological  survey  of  the 
United  States,  were  a  number  of  French 
men.  One  of  them  was  Charles  Lesueur, 
a  French  naturalist  and  draughtsman,  who 
drew  some  of  the  engravings  for  Say's 
Conchology,  had  been  employed  in  the  Jar- 
din  des  Plantes  of  Paris,  sent  to  it  many 
reports  of  his  American  explorations,  and  con 
tributed  papers  to  the  American  Philosoph 
ical  Society  and  to  the  Academy  of  Natural 
Sciences,  of  both  of  which  he  was  an  active 
member.  He  taught  in  the  scientific  school 
founded  at  New  Harmony,  Indiana,  of  which 
Maclure  was  part  founder  with  Robert  Owen; 
later  he  returned  to  Philadelphia,  where  he 
gave  lessons  in  drawing  and  painting,  and  con 
tinued  his  scientific  researches;  these  were  re 
warded  by  appointment  as  Director  of  the 
Museum  of  Natural  History  of  Havre,  his 
native  city,  and  he  died  there  soon  after  his 

return  to  France.     A  sympathetic  memoir  of 
14  209 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  AND  EXILES 

him  was  recently  printed  by  the   Society  of 
Americanists  of  Paris. 

Another  of  Maclure's  scientific  corps  was 
Phignepul  d'Arusmont,  and  still  another,  Mme. 
Fretageot.  Under  them  a  large  school  was 
established,  on  Owen's  plan  of  teaching  both 
useful  arts  and  mathematics  and  natural  his 
tory,  Lesueur  taking  an  active  part  in  the 
work.  For  many  years  New  Harmony  re 
mained  the  chief  scientific  and  educational 
centre  in  the  West,  influencing  the  country  and 
the  people  in  many  ways,  largely  owing  to  the 
presence  there  of  Frenchmen  of  science  and 
their  instruction. 


Appendix  A 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Jeffreys:     History  of  the   French  Dominions   in 

America.     London,  1761;  folio. 
D'Anville:     Memoires    pour    la    Carte    intitulee: 

Canada,  Louisiane,  etc.     Paris,  1756;  4°. 
Lescarbot:      Histoire    de    la     Nouvelle     France. 

Paris,  1618. 
Dussieux:    La  Canada  sous  la  domination  fran- 

9aise.     Paris,  1862. 

Poussin:   La  puissance  Americaine.     Paris,  1848. 
Lozere:    Histoire  des  fitats  Unis.      Paris,  1845. 
Carlier:    Histoire  du   peuple  Americain.     Paris, 

1864.* 
Tocqueville:    La  Democratic  en  Amerique.    Paris, 

1838-40. 
Laboulaye:     Histoire    politique    des    Etats    Unis. 

Paris,  1855. 
Le  Page  du  Pratz:  Hist,  de  la  Louisiane.     Paris, 

1758. 


*  An  answer  to  the  work  of  Tocqueville. 
211 


APPENDIX  A 

Vergennes :  Mem.  Hist,  et  polit.  sur  la  Louisiana. 
Paris,  1802. 

Milfort:  Voyages  dans  la  Louisiane.  Paris, 
1802. 

Barbe  Marbois:  Hist,  de  la  Louisiane.  Paris, 
1829. 

Monette:  History  of  the  Discovery  and  Settle 
ment  of  the  Valley  of  the  Mississippi;  7 
vols.  New  York,  1846. 

Chotteau:  Les  Frangais  en  Amerique  (1775-83). 
Paris,  1876. 

Gaffarel:  Hist,  de  la  Floride  frangaise.  Paris, 
1876. 

Rameau:  La  colonie  canadienne  de  Detroit. 
Paris,  1881. 

Maze:  Role  de  la  France  dans  la  Republique  des 
Etats  Unis.  Paris,  1879- 

Margry:  Decouvertes  et  Establissements  des 
Frangais  dans  Fouest  et  dans  le  sud  de 
T  Amerique  septentrionale.  1614-1754;  6 
vols.  Paris,  1888. 

Brissot  de  Warville:  New  Travels  in  the  United 
States,  1788.  Translated  by  Chas.  Brock- 
den  Brown.  Philadelphia,  1804. 

Volney's  Travels  in  the  United  States :  Translated 
"  by  his  friend "  Chas.  Brockden  Brown. 
Philadelphia,  1804. 

Perrin  du  Lac:  Voyage  dans  les  deux  Louisianes. 
Lyon,  1801. 

212 


APPENDIX  A 

Vicomte  de  Noailles:  Marins  et  soldats  Fran£ais 
en  Amerique  pendant  la  Guerre  de  1'Inde- 
pendance  des  Etats  Unis  (1778-1783). 
Paris,  Perrin,  1893. 

Quesnay  de  Beaurepaire:  Virginia  Historical 
Society,  vol.  ii,  N.  S.,  by  R.  H.  Gains;  pp. 
166,  etc. 

Love  and  Adventures  of  M.  [Louis  Lebeau]  Du 
Portail,  late  Major-General  in  the  Armies  of 
the  United  States,  with  incidents  of  the  late 
Count  Pulauski.  Boston,  1 799 ;  New  Haven, 
1813. 

The  French  Regime  in  Wisconsin,  1634-1748. 
Wisconsin  State  Historical  Society,  vols.  16 
and  17,  1902  and  1906. 

Chevalier,  Michel:  Lettres  sur  1' Amerique  du 
Nord.  Paris,  1836. 

Franche,  Gabriel:  Narrative  of  a  Voyage  to  the 
Northwest  Coast  of  America  in  the  Years 
1811-12-13-14.  Translated  by  J.  V.  Hunt 
ingdon.  New  York,  1854. 

Beaujour,  Felix  de:  Sketch  of  the  United  States 
from  1800  to  1810,  with  statistical  tables. 
Translated  from  the  French  by  William 
Walton.  London,  1814. 

Bossu:  Travels  through  Louisiana.  Translated 
from  the  French  by  John  Reinhold  Forster. 
London,  1771. 

De  Fonpertuis:    Les  Etats  Unis.     Paris,  1854. 
213 


APPENDIX  A 

Brissot,  de  Warville,  J.  P. :  Nouveau  voyage  dans 
les  Etats  Unis  fait  en  1788;  3  vols.  Paris, 
1791. 

Id. :  Translation,  with  his  Life ;  2  vols.  Lon 
don,  1794. 

Chastellux:  Travels  in  North  America,  1780-1-2; 

2  vols.     Paris,  1785;  1788;  London,  1787. 
Id.:  Examen  Critique  par  J.  P.  Brissot  de 
Warville.     Philadelphia,   1788. 

Collot,  Gen.  Victor :  A  Journey  in  North  America. 

Paris,  1826. 
Michaux,  F.  A.:    Travels  to  the  Westward  of  the 

Allegheny    Mountains,    etc.     Translated    by 

B.  Lambert.     London,  1805. 
Robin,  C.  C.:   Voyages  dans  la  Louisiane,  1802-6; 

3  vols.     Paris,  1807. 

Id. :  New  Travels  in  North  America,  exhibit 
ing  the  campaigns  of  the  allied  armies,  etc. 
Philadelphia,  1783. 

St.    John,    J.    Hector:     Lettres    d'un   fermier   de 
Pennsylvanie,      traduites      de      1'Anglais. 
Amsterdam,  1769- 

Id. :  Letters  «f rom  an  American  Farmer. 
London,  1782;  Philadelphia,  1793. 

Volney,  C.  F. :  Tableau  du  climat  et  sol  des  fitats 
Unis,  suivi   d'eclaircissemens   sur  la   Floride 
et    sur    la    colonie    Francaise    au    Scioto;    2 
vols.      Paris,    1802. 
Id. :   Translation.     London,  1804. 


APPENDIX  A 

Rochefoucauld  Liancourt,  Duke  de:  Travels 
through  the  United  States,  1795-6-7;  2  vols. 
London,  1799. 

Puisaye:  Memoires,  London,  1803-8;  7  vols.  [A 
collection  of  his  Papers  in  the  British 
Museum.] 

Brown,    Chas.    Brockden:     Address   to   the   Gov 
ernment   of  the   United  States   on  the   Ces 
sion  of  Louisiana.     Philadelphia,  1803. 
Id. :  Literary  Magazine  and  American  Regis 
ter.     Philadelphia,  1803-7. 
Id.:     American      Register.        Philadelphia, 
1806-9. 

Brissot  de  Warville:  Commerce  of  America  with 
Europe,  particularly  with  France  and  Great 
Britain,  comparatively  stated  and  explained, 
showing  the  importance  of  the  American 
Revolution  to  the  Interests  of  France,  and 
pointing  out  the  actual  situation  of  the 
United  States  in  regard  to  Trade,  Manufac 
tures  and  Population.  By  J.  P.  Brissot  de 
Warville  and  Etienne  Clairere.  Translated 
from  the  last  French  edition,  revised  by 
Brissot,  and  called  the  second  volume  of  his 
View  of  America,  with  the  Life  of  Brissot, 
and  an  Appendix  by  the  Translator  [Joel 
Barlow].  London,  1794;  New  York,  1795. 

Bortel  Dumont:    Voyage  a  la  Louisiane  dans  les 
annees  1794-8.     Paris,  An.  IX. 
215 


APPENDIX  A 

Brissot  de  Warville :  *  New  Travels  in  the  United 

States  Performed  in  1788.     London,   1792; 

New  York,  1792;  Boston,  1797. 

New  Travels  in  the  United  States,  etc.;  2 

vols.     London,  1794. 
Crevecceur:    Voyage  dans  la  haute  Penn. ;  3  vols. 

Paris,  1801. 
Crevecoeur:     Lettres  d'un  cultivateur  Americain. 

Paris,  1784,  2  vols.;  1787,  3  vols. 
Drouin  de  Bercy:   L'Europe  et  FAmerique.   Paris, 

1818. 

*  Sabin's  Note  s.  v.  Brissot:  The  author  came  to  the 
United  States  just  before  the  French  Revolution,  for 
the  purpose  of  selecting  a  suitable  place  for  establish 
ing  a  colony  of  respectable  persons,  who  had  deter 
mined  to  abandon  the  then  despotic  government  of 
France  and  seek  an  asylum  under  the  mild  and  equal 
government  of  the  United  States.  M.  Brissot  was 
commissioned  to  collect  every  necessary  information, 
prior  to  the  execution  of  so  important  a  plan.  These 
volumes  contain  the  results  of  his  assiduous  labors  and 
minute  enquiries,  and  sufficiently  manifest  that  he  was 
qualified  to  accomplish  such  an  arduous  undertaking. 
The  second  volume  is  a  new  edition  of  Brissot  and 
Clairere's  De  la  France  et  des  Etats  Unis,  etc.,  printed 
at  Paris  in  1787,  and  in  English  in  1788.  A  German 
translation  by  J.  R.  Foster  was  printed  in  Berlin  in 
1792,  and  another  in  Hof  in  three  volumes  in  1796;  a 
Dutch  translation  in  Amsterdam  in  1794  in  two  volumes. 
It  was  also  published  by  Brisson  in  Paris  in  three 
volumes  in  1791,  and  in  a  German  translation  by 
Ehrmann  in  Heidelberg  in  1792. 
216 


APPENDIX  A 

Perrin  du  Lac:  Voyage  dans  les  deux  Louisianes. 
Paris,  1805. 

Robin,  1'Abbe:  Nouveau  Voyage  dans  1'Amerique 
septentrionale  en  Fannee  1781,  etc.  Phila 
delphia  and  Paris,  1782. 

Bayard:  Voyage  dans  Finterieur  des  Etats  Unis 
pendant  Fete  de  1791.  Paris,  1819. 

Mably:  Observations  sur  le  gouvernement  et  les 
lois  des  Etats  Unis.  Amsterdam,  1784. 

Mazzei:  Recherches  sur  les  Etats  Unis,  etc.;  4 
vols.  Colle,  1788. 

Chateaubriand:  Voyages  en  Amerique.  Brus 
sels,  1828. 

Le  Page  du  Pratz:  Hist,  de  la  Louisiane;  3 
vols. 

De  Pauw:  Recherches  sur  les  Americains;  2  vols. 
London,  1770-1. 

L' Academic  des  Sciences  et  Beaux  Arts  des  fitats 
Unis  de  1' Amerique,  Richmond,  Va. :  Memoire 
et  prospectus,  concernant  F  Academic  etablie 
a  Richemond,  capitale  de  la  Virginie;  par  le 
Chevalier  Quesnay  de  Beaurepaire,  Fonda- 
teur,  President.  Paris,  Cailleau,  Imprimeur 
de  FAcademie  de  Richmond,  1788;  8  p.  L, 
52  pp.,  8°. 

Murat  Achille:  Esquisse  morale  et  politique  sur 
les  Etats  Unis.  Paris,  1832. 

Bossu:   Nouveau  Voyage,  etc.     Amsterdam,  1778. 


217 


APPENDIX  A 

Raynal:  Tableau  et  revolutions  des  Colonies 
Anglaises,  etc.  Amsterdam,,  1781. 

Bulletin  of  the  New  York  Public  Library,  March, 
1907. 

Laval,  Antoine  Jean  de:  Voyage  de  la  Louisiana, 
fait  par  Ordre  du  Roy  en  Fannee  mil  sept 
cent  vingt:  Dans  lequel  sont  traitees  diverses 
matieres  de  Phisique,  Astronomic,  Geo 
graphic  et  Marine.  Divers  Voyages  faits 
pour  la  correction  de  la  Carte  de  la  Cote  de 
Province;  Et  des  Reflexions  sur  quelques 
points  du  Sisteme  de  M.  Newton.  Par  le 
P.  Laval,  de  la  Compagnie  de  Jesus.  "  A 
valuable  and  scientific  book  of  travels,  which 
enters  very  fully  into  the  Physical  Geog 
raphy,  etc.,  of  the  French  dominions  in 
Louisiana  and  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi." 
Maps,  folding  tables,  etc.  Paris,  1728,  4°. 

Selections  from  the  Gallipolis  Papers,  arranged 
and  edited  by  Theodore  T.  Belote.  Quar 
terly  Publication  of  the  Historical  and  Philo 
sophical  Society  of  Ohio,  vol.  ii,  1907,  No.  2. 
Cincinnati,  Ohio. 

The  Scioto  Speculation  and  the  French  Settle 
ment,  by  Theodore  T.  Belote,  University  of 
Cincinnati.  Cincinnati,  Ohio. 


Appendix  B 


FRENCH  PLACE  NAMES  IN  THE  UNITED 
STATES  1 

Abbeville:    South  Carolina;  settled  by  French. 
Alexandria:  New  York;  after  Alexander  Le  Ray, 

son  of  J.  D.,  who  fell  in  a  duel  in  1836. 
Atala:         Mississippi;       after       Chateaubriand's 

heroine. 

Bienville:    Louisiana;  after  the  French  explorer. 
Bonaparte:    New  York  and  Alabama. 
Bonneville:    Nevada  and  New  York. 
Bonpland:    California. 
Bordeaux:  South  Carolina. 
Bourbon:    Kentucky,  Indiana  and  Kansas. 
Cadillac :    Michigan. 
Cape  Vincent:    New  York;  after  son  of  Le  Ray 

de  Chaumont. 
Carondelet :   Louisiana. 
Castine:    Maine. 
Champaign:    Ohio  and  Illinois. 

1  Place  Names  in  the  United  States,  by  Henry  Gan 
nett,  U.  S.  Geol.  Survey  Bulletin  No.  258.  Washing 
ton,  D.  C. 

219 


APPENDIX  B 

Charlevoix :    Michigan. 

Chateaugay:    New  York. 

Chaumont:   New  York. 

Choteau:    Montana  and  South  Dakota. 

Creve  Cceur:    Missouri. 

Des  Moines:    Iowa. 

Duluth :   Minnesota. 

Faribault :    Minnesota : 

Gallia:    Ohio;  settled  by  a  French  colony,  1790. 

Gallipolis:  Ohio;  settled  by  a  French  colony, 
1790. 

Havre  de  Grace:  Maryland;  from  the  French 
port. 

Hennepin:    Illinois  and  Minnesota. 

Hugoton  (for  Victor  Hugo)  :    Kansas,  and 

Hugo :    Colorado. 

Iberville:    Louisiana. 

Isle  Lamotte:    Vermont. 

Joliet :    Illinois. 

Labaddie :    Missouri. 

Laclede:    Missouri  (founder  of  St.  Louis). 

Lafayette:  Arkansas,  Florida,  Louisiana,  Missis 
sippi,  Maryland,  New  Hampshire,  Ohio, 
Wisconsin.* 

Lagrange:  (after  Lafayette's  country  home): 
Indiana,  New  York,  North  Carolina. 


*  For    a    number    of    other    Lafayettes    see    U.    S. 
Postal  Guide, 


APPENDIX  B 

La  Harpe:    Illinois  (after  French  explorer). 

Lahonte:    New  York. 

Lamartine :   Wisconsin. 

La  Motte:    New  York  (after  French  soldier). 

Lamy:    New  Mexico  (after  Archbishop  Lamy). 

Langlade:    Wisconsin  (after  first  white  settler). 

Laporte:     Pennsylvania     (after     early     French 
settler). 

Laramie:     Ohio    (after    early    French    Canadian 
trader). 

Lasalle:    Illinois,  New  York,  Texas. 

Lavallette:    New  Jersey. 

Le  Claire:    Iowa. 

Le  Ray:    New  York. 

Le  Raysville:    Pennsylvania. 

Lesueur:    Minnesota   (after  early  explorer). 

Low  Freight:    Arkansas   (tr.  of  "  1'eau  froid"). 

Luzerne:    Pennsylvania  (after  French  Minister). 

Maine:    (after  estate  of  Henrietta  Maria,  Queen 
of  France). 

Mandeville:      Louisiana      (after      early      French 
owner). 

Marengo:    Alabama,  Illinois,  Iowa. 

Marietta:    Ohio   (after  Marie  Antoinette),  Penn 
sylvania. 

Marseilles :    Illinois. 

Massac:      Illinois     (after     French     Minister    of 
Marine  during  French  and  Indian  wars). 

Massena:    New  York. 

221 


APPENDIX  B 

Massilon :   Ohio. 

Maurepas :    Louisiana. 

Marmiton:     Missouri    (from    French    word    for 

scullion). 

Meredosia:    Illinois  (from  marais  d'osier). 
Montcalm :    Michigan. 
Napoleon :    Ohio. 
New  Orleans:   Louisiana. 
New  Rochelle:    New  York. 
Nicollet:    Minnesota. 
Orleans:     Louisiana,    Nebraska,    New   York   and 

Virginia. 

Papillion :    Nebraska. 
Papinsville:    Mississippi  (after  Pierre  Mellecourt 

Papin). 

Paris:    New  York,  Kentucky,  Maine. 
Pere  Marquette:    Michigan. 
Pierre:   Dakota  (after  P.  Choteau). 
Plaquemines:    Louisiana  (named  by  Bienville  on 

account  of  persimmons). 
Pomme  de  Terre:   Missouri. 
Poteau :    Arkansas. 
Prairie  du  Chien:    Wisconsin. 
Prairie  du  Rocher:    Illinois. 
Prairie  du  Sac:    Wisconsin. 
Presque  Isle:    Maine  and  Michigan. 
Purgatoire  Riviere:    Arkansas,  Colorado. 
Quebec  (quel  bee)  :   Canada. 
Rapides :    Louisiana. 

222 


APPENDIX  B 

Roche  Percee:  Missouri. 

Roche  Moutonnee:     Colorado. 

Rochelle :    Illinois. 

Roche  a  Gris:    Wisconsin. 

Roseau:    Minnesota. 

Sabine:    Louisiana  (French  for  cypress). 

Saint  Anne:    Illinois. 

Saint  Anthony:    Minnesota. 

Saint  Augustine:    Florida. 

Saint  Bernard:    Louisiana. 

Saint  Charles:    Louisiana,  Missouri. 

Saint  Clair:    Michigan,  Alabama,  Missouri,  Illi 
nois,  Nebraska,  Pennsylvania. 

Saint  Cloud:    Minnesota. 

Saint  Croix:    Maine,  Minnesota,  Wisconsin. 

Saint  Fran£ois:    Missouri. 

Saint  Genevieve:    Missouri. 

Saint  Helena:   Louisiana  and  Colorado. 

Saint  Ignace:    Michigan. 

Saint  James:    Louisiana. 

Saint  Johnsbury:     Vermont    (after   St.   John   de 
Crevecoeur) . 

Saint  Joseph;    Michigan,  Missouri. 

Saint  Landry:    Louisiana. 

Saint  Louis:    Missouri,  Minnesota. 

Saint  Martin:    Louisiana. 

Sans  Tache:    California. 

Sault  Ste.  Marie:    Michigan. 

Tchemanahaut  (chemin  en  haut)  :    Arkansas. 
223 


APPENDIX  B 

Terre  Haute:    Indiana. 

Terrebonne :    Louisiana. 

Terre  Noir:   Arkansas. 

Theresa:    New  York  (after  daughter  of  Le  Ray 

de   Chaumont) . 
Thibodaux :    Louisiana. 
Toulon:   Tennessee  and  Illinois. 
Trempealeau  (trempe  a  Feau)  :    Wisconsin. 
Vergennes :    Vermont. 

Versailles:    Indiana  and  eight  other  places. 
Wolf  River  (riviere  de  loup)  :    Kansas. 


Index 

Acadians 39 

Adams,  Herbert  B 73 

Adet 83,  190,  192 

Alabama 15,  159 

Allegheny,  the 18,  116 

American  Catholic  Historical  Society,  the 86 

American  Philosophical  Society,  the,  8,  82,  139,  186 
190,  193-196,  198,  203,  209 

Armand,  Colonel 64,  78,  79 

Autichamp,  D' 72 

Ayrault 55 

Baird 9,  32,  52,  55 

Balch 68 

Balzac 160,  183,  185 

Bancroft 7,  13  note,  15 

Baratarians 50,  51 

Barbe  Marbois 42,  188,  195,  202 

Bardstown,  Kentucky 97-98 

Barlow,  Joel 20 

Bartram 79 

Bastrop,  Baron  de 45,  48 

Bayards,  the 58 

Beaujolais,  Due  de 208 

Beaujour,  Felix  de 82 

Beaulieu,  Pierre  Leroy 11,  146 

Beaurepaire,  Quesnay  de 73,  74,  76,  189 

Belle  Riviere 18 

Benevolent  Society,  the  French 87 


225 


INDEX 

Bernadotte 32,  40 

Bernard 73 

Berthier 40,  65 

Bienville,  Celeron  de 16,  18,  25,  36,  37 

Boisbriant,  Pierre  Dugue 23 

Bonaparte,  Charles 194 

General 41,  80 

Joseph  ...109,  160,  162-165,  166-168,  180,  181 

Lucien 40 

Bonneville 65,  66 

Bore 39,  49 

Bouvier,  John 88 

Bowdoin 54 

Bourbon,  county,  Kentucky 78,  98 

Breck,  Samuel 203,  206,  207 

Bridau 184,  185 

Brillat  Savarin 103-105 

Brissot  de  Warville 82,  189,  202,  205,  207 

Burr,  Aaron 48 

Cabet 154,  156,  157,  169 

Cadillac 13,  33,  37 

Cahokia 17,  22,  23,  25-27,  43,  97,  98,  132,  138 

Carolana 14 

Carondelet 46-48 

"Cartier  to  Frontenac"  (Winsor) 32 

Casgrain,  L'Abbe 38 

Castine,  Maine 33 

Champlain 17 

Champs  d'Asile 160,  167,  183-185 

Charleston,  South  Carolina 54 

"Charleston"  (Mrs.  St.  Julien  Ravenel) 91  note 

Charlevoix 37,  39 

Chartres,  Fort 23,  25,  38,  43 

Chastellux 65,  71,  190,  207 

Chateaubriand 78-80,  82,  99,  176,  182 


226 


INDEX 

Chatelet,  Du 17 

Chaudron 159 

Chaumont,  Le  Ray  de 106,  108,  163,  206 

Cheverus,  Archbishop 89 

Choiseul 16,  17,  95,  96 

Chouteau 43 

Family,  the 45 

Cibot,  Father 86 

Cincinnati,  Society  of  the 67 

Clark,  George  Rogers, 19,  27,  29-31,  85 

Lewis  and 45 

Clausel 159,  174,  181 

Collot 26,  31,  48,  83 

Coudray,  Du 69 

Coxe 14 

Crevecceur,  Fort 25 

Hector  St.  John  de 206 

Crozat 37 

Cutler,  Manasseh 29,  135 

Damas 71 

Decres 41,  42 

Delaware,  Country,  Upper 60-62 

Depauw 139 

Desert,  Mount 33,  34 

Des  Moines  River 22 

Detroit 13,  17,  22,  33 

De  Turk,  Isaac 58 

Dumas 65 

Dumont 38 

Du  Lac,  Perrin 46 

Dupetit  Thouars 69,  141,  143,  145,  146,  148 

Duponceau 134,  197 

Du  Pont  de  Nemours,  Pierre  Samuel,  58,  121,  176 

180,  190,  193 
Du  Ponts,  the..  .58 


227 


INDEX 

Duportail 196 

Du  Pratz,  Le  Page 47 

Dupuy,  Nicholas 61 

Dupuys,  the 54 

Durocher 45 

Du  Simitiere 186 

"Early  Exploration  of  Louisiana,  The"  (Cox) 45 

Explorers,  early  French 17 

Faneuil 54 

Fauchet 191 

Ferree,  Mme 57 

Fersen,  Count 64 

Fiske 33 

Fortier 42,  43 

"French  Agricultural    and    Manufacturing   Society, 

The," 161 

French  Creek 18 

"French  in  America,  The"  (Balch) 68 

French  Grant,  the 21,  81,  133 

French  Patriotic  Society,  the 77 

"Frontenac"  (Parkman) 33 

Galissoniere 18 

Gallia  County 135 

Gallipolis,  19,  31,  46,  84,  98,  99,  125,  131,  132-134 

135,  136,  137,  139 

Galvez 39 

Gayarre 48,  51 

Genet 30,  31,  48,  191 

Gratiot 26 

Great  Kanawha,  the 18,  20 

Great  Miami,  the 18 

Gregoires,  the 33 

Grouchy 160 

Harmar,  Fort 29 

Harmar,  General 28 


228 


INDEX 

Henry,  Patrick 29 

"Historical  and  Political  Essays  "(Lodge) 10 

Historical  Society,  American  Catholic 86 

"History  of  Louisiana,  A"  (Fortier) 35 

Holland  Land  Company,  the 176 

Hourie 139 

Huger 93,  95 

Huguenots,  the 10,  11,  52-57,  59,  91,  92,  93 

"Huguenot  Emigration  to  America"  (Baird)  .  .  .  .32,  57 

Huguenot  Society  of  New  York,  the 56  note 

"History  of  the  Huguenots"  (Baird) 9 

Humbert,  General 44,  51 

Hyde  de  Neuville,  162,  165,  166,  167,  176,  178,  180,  194 

Iberville,  D' 13,  36,  47 

Icarians 152,  154,  155,  169 

Illinois 10,  17,  22,  23,  25,  26,  45,  85 

Illinois,  the 28,  29 

Indiana 17 

Indies,  Company  of  the 37 

Inquisition,  Holy    46,  49 

Iowa 151 

Irving,  Washington 65,  66 

Izard,  Ralph 91 

Jefferson,  Joseph 94 

Joinville,  Prince  de 67 

Joliet 17 

Jumonville 18 

Jusserand 8,  196 

Kaskaskia,  13,  17,  21-23,  25-27,  29,  39,  43,  97,  132, 
138 

Lacassagne 139 

La  Chaise 31 

Lafayette,  65,  71,  75,  95,  104,  142,  187,  188,  190,  194 

Lafitte,  Jean 50,  51 

Lafitte,  Pierre 50,  162 


229 


INDEX 

"Lafitte,    Pierre    and    Jean,    Historical    Sketch    of" 

(Gayarre) 50,  51 

Lakanal 44,  159,  161,  163,  166,  181 

Lalande 45 

Lallemand 161,  162,  167,  181,  183 

La  Roche 32 

La  Rochefoucauld,  Due  de,  94,  140,  142,  143,  145 

189,  208 

La  Salle 13,  17,  18,  22,  35 

Lassus 119 

Lassus,  De 48 

Latour 44,  51 

Laussat 40-42 

Lauzun 65 

Law,  John 15,  37 

Le  Braz,  Anatole 7 

Le  Contes,  the 53 

Lefebvre  Desnouettes 159,  162,  167 

L'Enfant 68,  69,  71,  73 

Lesueur 36 

Lesueur,  Charles 209,  210 

Lewis  and  Clark 45 

Lefever,  Isaac 58 

Lehigh,  country 60 

Lezay  Marnezia 119 

Liancourt,  Rochefoucauld 191,  205 

Lodge 10 

Louisiana 7,  10,  12,  15,  17,  30,  32,  33,  35-39,  41-43 

Holy  Inquisition  in 49 

"Louisiana:  A  Record  of  Expansion"  (A.  Phelps).    46 
"Louisiana  Sugar  Plantation  of  the  Old  Regime,  A" 

(Gayarre) 48 

Louis  XIV 33,  35 

Louis  Philippe,  11,  39,  143,  167,  168,  169,  174,  181 

182,  206,  208 


230 


INDEX 

Louisville 29,  85,  89,  98,  139 

Lucas 139 

Luzerne t  ....  72,  75,  187,  190 

County 145 

Maison  Rouge,  Marquis  de 45,  48 

Manakintown  on  the  James <    14 

Marengo,  County,  Alabama 78,  161 

Marie  Antoinette 29,  64 

Marietta 29,  84 

Marion,  Francis 53,  93 

Marquette 17 

Massac,  Fort 22,  25 

Maurepas,  Lake 36 

Mazyck,  Isaac. 91 

"Memorials  of  the  Huguenots"  (Stapleton) 57 

Mexico 32,  44 

Michaux 31 

Michigan 13 

Mifflin,  Fort 77 

Milford,  Pike  County,  Pennsylvania 62 

Miro,  Governor 49 

Mississippi  Territory,  the 171 

Mobile 14,  26,  37 

Monette,  John  W 19  note 

Monongahela,  the 116 

Monroe  County,  Pennsylvania 62 

Montgomery,  E 88 

Montpensier,  Due  de 208 

Moreau 26,  44,  82,  178,  208 

Morris,  Gouverneur    106-108,  206 

Morris,  Mrs.  Robert 206 

Motte 93 

"Mount  Desert"  (G.  E.  Street) 32 

Muskingurn,  the 18 

Napoleon,  8,  12,  32,  40-42,  44,  166,  174,  178,  180, 
181,  203 

231 


INDEX 

"New  France  and  New  England"  (Fiske) 33 

New  Madrid 24 

New  Orleans,  16,  17,  22,  23,  27,  37,  39,  44,  47,  49,  82 

New  Rochelle 53,  55,  56 

Noailles,  Vicomte  de,  40,  68,  71,  72,  82,  99,  129, 141, 
142,  143,  144,  146,  148,  202,  208 

Ohio 18,  29 

Ohio,  the 18,  20,  22,  29,  30,  116,  125,  128,  129,  171 

Ohio  Company,  the  20,  29,  133,  136,  137,  138 

Old  French  Road,  the 145 

Old  French  War,  the 19,  133 

Paine,  "Tom" 65 

Paris,  Comte  de 67 

Paris,  Kentucky 78,  98 

Parkman 7,  17 

Parrish,  Randall 21 

Patriotic  Society,  the  French 77 

Penn 53 

Penn's  early  settlers 59 

Pensacola 39 

Peoria 24 

Peorias,  the 22 

Perin 46 

Phelps,  Albert 46 

Philadelphia,  20,  48,  59,  66,  68,  72-74,  77,  78,  81,  82, 
83,  86,  87,  89,  137 

Philippe,  St 23,  25,  27 

Philosophical  Society,  the  American,  8,  82,  139,  186, 
190,  193-196,  198,  203,  209 

Pike's  Expedition 45 

Pinchot,  Constantine 62 

Polony,  Dr 94 

Pontalba 40 

Pontchartrain,  Lake 36 

Pontgibaud,  Chevalier  de 76,  196 

Poydras 39 

232 


INDEX 

Prairie  du  Chien 152 

Prairie  du  Pont 23 

Pratz,  Le  Page  du 37 

Prioleau,  Rev.  Elias 92 

Puisaye 101 

Quincy 24 

Ravenel,  Mrs.  St.  Julien 91  note 

Raynal,  Abbe 79 

Rayneval,  Gerard  de 187 

"Relations  et  Memoires  Inedits"  (Margry) 33 

"Reminiscences     of     Wilmington,     Delaware"      (E. 

Montgomery) 88 

Renault 23-25 

Revere,  Paul 53,  54 

Robert 93 

Roberval 32 

Robin 43,  45 

Robin's  "Travels," 45  note 

Robin's  voyage  to  Louisiana 43 

Rochambeau 10,  40,  64,  65,  72,  77,  81,  83,  208 

Rocher,  Prairie  du 22,  23,  25,  27,  43,  97,  132 

Rock  Island 24 

Roosevelt 7,  26,  28 

Roosevelt's  "Winning  of  the  West" 19,  26,  28  note 

Scioto  Company,  the  .  .20,  21,  29,  46,  84,  134,  136,  137 

Scioto  County,  Ohio 31 

Sedella,  Antonio  de 49,  50 

Segur 64 

Sigourneys,  the 54 

Stapleton 57 

St.  Castine,  Baron  de 33 

St.  Domingo 86,  93 

Ste.  Genevieve 97 

St.  Ildefonso,  Treaty  of 40 

St.  Louis 22,  38,  43,  85,  97,  132,  138,  158 

St.  Louis,  Fort 22,  25,  35 

233 


INDEX 

St.  Vincent 138 

Street,  George  E 32 

Talleyrand, 82,  198,  200,  201,  202,  204,  208 

Talleyrand  Perigord 190,  192 

Talon,  Omer 82,  99,  142,  144,  145,  146,  148,  150 

Tardiveau 28,  139 

Texas 32,  35 

Tombigbee  Association,  the 174 

Tonti 13 

Toussard 73,  77 

Trouillard,  Rev.  Florente  Philippe 92 

Ulloa 16 

Uniontown,  Pennsylvania 18 

University  of  Louisiana,  the 166 

Vergennes 121,  188,  190 

Versailles,  Kentucky 78,  98 

Victor,  General 40 

Vigo,  Francis 29 

Villiers,  Jean  Jules  Le  Moyne  de 133 

Vincennes 15,  17,  19,  21,  24,  26-28,  43,  97,  131 

Virginia  Company,  the 18 

Volney,  82,  129,  130,  132,  136,  137,  138,  190,  192,  198 

204,  208 

Vrain,  St 48 

Wabash,  the 21,  28,  131 

Walbach,  Gen.  John  de 90 

Walbach,  Rev.  Louis  Earth  de 89 

Warren,  Pennsylvania 18 

Washington,  George 18,  64,  70,  71,  80,  200,  208 

Washita,  the 45,  48 

Western  Pennsylvania 61,  63 

West  Virginia 18 

Wheeling  Creek 18 

"Wilmington,    Delaware,     Reminiscences    of"     (E. 

Montgomery) 88 

"Winning  of  The  West"  (Roosevelt's) ..  19,  26,  28  note 
234 


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